When we tell ourselves that someone else’s needs come first, we’re pretending to be generous and selfless, when in fact we’re being anything but. Deciding that it’s up to us to say whose needs come first is to put our own needs first, and to pretend we aren’t.
When we leave the common choice with someone else, we think we’re letting them decide when actually we’re telling them what to do. And we think we’re doing it for their sake, but we are also, and mainly, doing it for ours.
The victim masquerading as the hero. The one happy to adapt to any circumstances is the unadaptable.
Putting other people’s needs first is playing a victim. It’s to avoid responsibility for our decisions while pretending that we’re being responsible in putting other people first. In fact, there’s hardly a more irresponsible way to behave because the only thing we’re truly responsible for — and the one that we’re so stubbornly refusing to accept responsibility for — is ourselves. And the only way to be responsible is to always put our own needs first.
Saying we don’t have a say is having a say. It’s just not using the say in the most powerful way.