A friend of mine called the other day and said she got an insight while spending time with herself. She is an accomplished professional whose spouse is a professional in the same field and she has two beautiful children – a daughter and a son.

When I asked her what the insight was ? She said that ,today after so many years of marriage and professional working in a company “ she realised that she needs to live for herself first ,before she serves others in her life ,including family and friends.

I thought ,this was quite insightful. Many of us spend our whole life time ,living for others and in the process forget that we also have our individualistic needs. Our health may be fading and we may never have spent time ,on things we enjoy in life.

I am not for one saying ,that we need not serve others. Even this friend of mine did not mean, that you need not help others. She is a working professional and takes care of her family including spouse, children and parents from both the sides.

What she meant is that ,sometimes ,in our quest to excel at work or taking care of family and friends, we forget our own individual needs. Self care is as important as caring for others ,she said. I more than agree ,to this concept.

If we do not take care of ourselves, nobody else will. Our health is in our hands and so are our other interests and hobbies. If we cannot spend time for our own selves, nobody else will. We may realise that health is impacted after we are down with some disease or handicap, since we neglected our own health ,all the while.

If we do not discover our own passions in life ,by spending quality time on them, nobody else can invest that time ,for us. Even if somebody is willing to spend some time with us, it may not kindle joy in us.

I walk every day and also practise yoga and play badminton whenever time permits. I recall many years back ,when I used to skip my walk on some silly pretext ,my wife used to remind me that diabetes is mine and not hers. This was a very timely reminder to me that if I don’t take care of my own health, others can do nothing about it.

Life is also that way. We need to find time for ourselves every day. We may call it “me time” or whatever one wants to call it. We need to discover and re-discover ourself, as a human being, every day of our lives. We need to maintain our health and be physically, mentally and emotionally fit . It is then , that we can take care of others better.

I am grateful to my friend for sharing this insight with me. It has not only reminded me of this important aspect of life but also may be a good reminder for many of my readers.

Let us pause, look at the mirror and discover ourself all over again today.

S Ramesh Shankar

3rd Dec 2023