Selfishness is the opposite of love.
How true.
I like the following statement:
Loving couples -- the ones who are enjoying the full purpose of marriage -- are bent on taking good care of the other flawed human they get to share life with. That's because true love looks for ways to say "yes."
That is a good way of looking at marriage: acknowledging that our spouse is flawed, just like us, and endeavoring to take good care of that partner.
The chapter brings up an old but sneaky truth about generous deeds: they can be done with a selfish motive if it is to gain bragging rights or get "brownine points."
The bottom line is that you either make decisions out of love for others or love for yourself.
I hope I can be a great lover; but I really don't want to be a great lover of my self. I already do a really good job of pampering myself and giving myself way too much attention. If I can just take half of the attention that I give myself and instead give that to my wife, I bet the change would be enormous!
Here's another brash statement from the book:
Love is never satisfied except in the welfare of others.
It goes on to say that you can't be selfish and truly love at the same time. There's also a funny reminder:
Nobody knows you as well as your spouse. ANd that means no one will be quicker to recognize a change when you deliberately start sacrificing your wants and wishes to make sure his or her needs are met.
It'll be interesting to see if any changes I make are noticed. If they are, all the more reason to remain selfless, huh?
I like the warning that follows, too:
If you find it hard to sacrifice your own desires to benefit your spouse, then you may have a deeper problem with selfishness than you want to admit.
I bet I'll have to sign up for Selfish Pigs Anonymous when this is done!
Ask yourself these questions:
-Do I truly want what's best for my husband or wife?
-Do I want them to feel loved by me?
-Do they believe I have their best interests in mind?
-Do they see me as looking out for myself first?
I can give good answers to the first two, but the last two? I dunno. Here's what's going to happen:
My novel is going to be a smash hit. I'm going to reach my goal of seeing it in the top 10 list of sports books in ESPN The Magazine. They'll make it into a movie. I'll be on talk shows, etc. But one of these shows will interview my wife, and they'll get a different description of me than the rest. The focus will quickly fade from how cool this book is and zoom in on what a selfish jerk I am. Man, I do not like that scenerio!
"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit,
but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves." (Philippians 2:3)
Today's Dare:
Whatever you put your time, energy, and money into will become more important to you. It's hard to care for something you are not investing in. Along with restraining from negative comments, buy your spouse something that says, "I was thinking of you today."