I owe no one an explanation, and neither should you.
I'm writing this because of the experience of a friend which I just learned of. He was one of these people who considered the ripple effects of heir decisions before he took any of them.
I'm not against the idea, but I'm not its brand ambassador either.
Before he took any decision regarding his choices in life, he had to check with everyone: His parents, friends, siblings, everyone. He would literally cancel a move just to help a friend in need and support their endeavors. He didn't realize how toxic such a standpoint was to himself until he finally saw that he was cooking up a storm for himself.
I could hardly stop myself from laughing out loud.
You might be the ideal friend, but we all need to ask ourselves this question once in a while: Can my friends reciprocate the sacrifices I made for them when the time comes?
There's one self-rule I've made for myself: Never let anything come between me and my happiness.
There's only so much people can do for you. The fact is that only you can't take care of yourself the way you'd like t be taken care of. Only you can go to great extents to ensure happiness, peace, love and prosperity. So you can put the motivational speeches and moral lessons in the corner and fight for yourself.
You should care about people, and make sacrifices for them, I'm totally not against that. But when the time comes to make that big decision for yourself or your family, take that step and be unapologetic about it.
They may not be happy hat you might have gotten that way, but neither will they be happy when you're living in a state of perpetual need, always having to depend on them because you sacrificed your prosperity and happiness for theirs.
Unless they are witches or completely toxic bad friends, which you should have nothing to do with.
The 'excuse' that they should be able to help you because you helped them isn't valid. Helping someone is a choice, and not everyone has the heart of gold to make that choice.
Of course, my friend found out that those people were not ready to make the same sacrifices for him. The only surprise there was that he was surprised. I wasn't. because I expected it. But I couldn't possibly say (CPS) any words to console him or ,make him feel better. That was the time to drive home my point, and I did it. Not because I was a sick, inconsiderate friend, but I had to be the nean (mean + nice) friend and tell him the hard truth there so he wouldn't experience such again.
Your friends might not be happy if you place your affairs over theirs sometimes, but they'll be happy when you're in a place to comfortably help them because you took that 'tough' decision.
Straight to the point