[HippyTed]

To friendship and love of others I say, you cannot sell what you don't have.

You can do it for a while but, the long lasting stuff, you need that personal foundation.

Easily said but difficult to do for many.

It requires a level of self awareness and an acknowledgement of your strengths and weaknesses and how they impact yourself and others. But like a doctor, the first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis.

Something something Jungian shadow work or something.

[makeitdouble]

> you cannot sell what you don't have.

Except you can, you can be a middle layer. I'm not just nitpicking on the analogy failing at the first degree, you can love someone much more than you love yourself, and the nature of what you bring to them doesn't need to be how you deal with yourself.

People raising kids in particular are supporting a level of self abuse that flies in the face of the analogy. They also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed. But asking them to treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way.

[em-bee]

treat themselves like they treat their kid just doesn't work in any practical way

how do you figure that? or, what exactly do you mean here? i don't exactly treat my kids the way i treat myself, but that's because we have different needs. but i most certainly don't treat my kids worse or better than myself.

you also say: they also understand that they need to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, to even be there to help their kid when needed

exactly, so where is the self-abuse?

[makeitdouble]

As a parent the physical/mental efforts and money I'm spending raising a kid aren't reciprocal to anything I'm doing for myself. We're at a stage we can sleep, don't deal with piss poop everyday, and only focus on higher issues like education and health, but it's still a lot.

And that's fine, that's an arrangement I'm choosing, and that's what makes the most sense. We're also getting something back emotionally, but I'd never expect for the whole thing to be balanced, and it would be crazy to expect as much from my kid as we're pouring into it.

T I don't know how it works for you, that's just not what raising kids is in our society today. We'd have to get back to sending kids to work 8h a day if we stick to the simplistic "treat others like you treat yourself" view of the world.

And I think more generally, that's not how caring for loved ones work. You can't be doing mental bookkeeping, the whole concept is just weird.

> self abuse

If we remove all the emotion and human aspects of it, sleeping a total of 4h in 3 days to keep an ill small human alive is self abuse.

[em-bee]

i don't think we are fundamentally disagreeing, but i do see a few things differently.

As a parent the physical/mental efforts and money I'm spending raising a kid aren't reciprocal to anything I'm doing for myself.

why? i mean, i agree they aren't equal, but i do for my kids what they need, and for myself what i need. so i consider it fair, neither to much, nor to little.

I'd never expect for the whole thing to be balanced

my definition of balanced is that everyone gets what they need. so yeah, it's absolutely balanced for me. or at least i try to make it balanced.

it would be crazy to expect as much from my kid as we're pouring into it

strongly disagree on that point, however, what i expect from my kids is what they do in the future. my dad stopped pouring anything into me when i moved out of the house. simply because i moved far away and we had little contact. which was fine. i now spend a lifetime giving to others what i learned from my dad. i expect my kids to do the same. for me it's the whole point of raising them. for them to go out and pay things forward.

We'd have to get back to sending kids to work 8h a day if we stick to the simplistic "treat others like you treat yourself" view of the world.

this doesn't make any sense to me at all.

but then, i am a freelancer, and i work on what i want, when i want. i don't work 8hrs a day either. so maybe i am an exception here, and i treat myself better than the average person? but even with a full-time job i don't think i would feel different.

also, we are sending kids to school. that's their "job" and it's just just as hard. including homework some kids work more than their parents.

mental bookkeeping

i don't do bookkeeping. all i am doing is making sure that i am well, and my family is well too.

sleeping a total of 4h in 3 days to keep an ill small human alive is self abuse

disagree calling that abuse. it's a sacrifice. but when that happens i'd take time off work, including a few days afterwards to recover. self-abuse implies that i should not do it. instead i make sure i get enough sleep on normal days. i am 50, and i am still able to pull the occasional all-nighter. not regularly, but i can if i have to.

[optiot]

That 'doing it for a while' part is one reason I don't really like the "only as well as you love yourself" truism. One can absolutely care deeply for others without caring much for themself, at least to start. But to your point, unless you can develop [/an awareness of the] strengths that you bring to a relationship, fears of being a burden, failing, or taking too much will put a steady drain on it.

I think the biggest thing that the "self-love prerequisite" idea misses and that the article sort of indirectly gets at is that this feeling of social self-efficacy is something most (all?) people learn through successful relationships with others - sometimes in our upbringing, sometimes not. I don't think it's unnatural at all for others' love of us to outpace our own just a little.

[aspenmayer]

> To friendship and love of others I say, you cannot sell what you don't have.

I love this formulation and will add it to my collection of aphorisms. I myself like a similar phrasing: one cannot pour from an empty cup.