Keeping your cup full is essential for maintaining balance in life; without consistent self-care, it’s hard to achieve lasting personal happiness.
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
Oscar Wilde
Keep your cup full. What does this mean? Can you relate this sentence to your life?
I have read these lines many times: Make others happy, and you will be satisfied. Always think about others before you do something. Never do something that makes others sad. There are many similar lines. They are so true and so beautiful. We can’t make everyone happy, it’s true, but at least from our side, we can try not to upset anyone.
But I have seen people sometimes tend to ignore their happiness and joy just to keep others happy. They overburden themselves to make others happy. Thinking about others’ joy is good, but putting your pleasure at stake to make others happy, I can’t understand.
When I was in college, I had a friend who was good to everyone. He was very kind with words and always made others happy. But he had one problem. I guess he didn’t know how to say no to anyone. He felt it was his responsibility to make everyone happy, and so he tried his best to do that whenever anyone approached him for help.
But by doing that all the time, he sometimes created trouble for himself and people made fun of him ignoring all the good deeds he did. Well, I am not going to discuss those incidences here but I must say my friend ignored the fact that he can’t make everyone happy on this planet.
“By keeping your cup full, you ensure that your journey toward personal happiness begins with the simple act of choosing to love oneself first.”
THE POWER OF KEEPING YOUR CUP FULL
When you prioritize self-care, you allow space for personal happiness to grow, empowering you to truly love oneself and others.
One should learn to keep their happiness first before one thinks of making others happy. This sentence is very beautifully explained by a truly inspiring lady ‘Oprah Winfrey’ and if you want you can see that many videos are available on YouTube.
Well, that doesn’t mean stealing someone else’s girlfriend for the sake of keeping yourself happy. Burning someone else’s house to satisfy your ego. Now that’s not the point that I am trying to convey.
I mean to say, let your cup be full and let it overflow and reach to others, that will be a true sense of happiness for you and for others. Now, here it gets controversial. Many people will raise their voices, it’s such a selfish act. I am telling people to be mean. I have no right to ask people to be mean…
What will happen if there is a hole at the midway of the cup, and you are still trying to fill it with the coffee? It will try to keep itself full, but unfortunately, it can’t do that because of the hole it has and you will see that coffee is coming out of the hole.
What do you observe? The cup is only half full. Though it’s filling other cups it has some space left that needs to be filled. The same thing happens with a human being. If the person is trying to keep everyone happy ignoring his own joy, then he won’t be contented and satisfied with his own life for a long time. There will be a part of him that will be missing something.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first, so you can give to others with a full heart.”
We are born alone and we are going to die alone. And so it’s our responsibility to take care of the things that make us happy and satisfied. I don’t think, thinking about our own happiness first is a selfish act. If we can’t keep ourselves fully satisfied and happy how can we make others happy? If we can’t fulfill the needs of our own, how can we fulfill the needs of others in a true way?
If the flower of our garden is dying, will it be able to spread its fragrance in the surroundings? Of course but its intensity will be lesser and it’s possible you won’t notice the fragrance after some time if the situation persists.
If we are taking away the flowers from the garden which has a lesser number of flowers, to decorate the wedding hall, what are we doing? Of course, we are decorating the wedding hall, to celebrate the beginning of a new life for two people together but what else are we doing? We are helping to make that garden go barren with no flowers. Isn’t it?
The same thing happens in our life. If we are thinking about others all the time, ignoring our happiness then after some time we will hate ourselves for doing that. We know ourselves better than anyone else on this planet. And we know what’s going to make us happy as well.
Also read- EMBRACING THE JOURNEY: FINDING PEACE IN THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Also read-STOP AND THINK IT OVER!
Conclusion
Happiness is a relative term. Everybody has their definition of happiness and joy. Some feel happy by seeing India winning the match and some feel happy by earning wealth. Some feel happy by bringing joy into others’ life some feel happy by buying candy for themselves. It’s a different topic of discussion. But here I am talking about keeping yourself on priority and making yourself special.
I believe you should keep yourselves happy and contented first. If you are healthy you can easily take care of other people because you don’t have to worry about your health. If you are satisfied you can easily spread fragrance in your surroundings. A self-contented and happy man can spread more love and affection to others because his cup is full now and it’s overflowing.
Also, we should keep in mind, that one can never be happy by making others sad and disregarding them. So saying that we did this because it made us happy is not the solution. It’s our intelligence and clear thinking that is going to bridge the gap between the two situations.
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others, but remember, it starts with self-love.”
Mahatma Gandh
Check out my book ‘THE TREE AND THE WIND’ on Kindle
