It’s Time to End the Cycle of Over-Giving

I seem to always attract spongers into my life. It came to a point that I believed that this was one of my missions in this world— to keep on sharing my blessings with everyone even if it drains the life out of me. But I have to put an end to this because I realize that I am just fooling myself, trying to escape from the truth that I am being abused by others because I am such an over-giver. I was compromising my well-being for the sake of being too nice and too kind.



To understand myself, I needed to know the root cause of this problem.  Why was I being too generous? I contemplated on this question until I found the reasons behind my self-destructive behavior. 


The first reason why I give too much is that I feel obliged to do so. I feel that I was breaking a rule if I didn’t. You see, I am the eldest among my siblings so my parents’ expectation to put the needs of my siblings above my own is well instilled in me. 


The second reason is that I am afraid that I would lose my friends if I didn’t share my blessings. You can’t blame me for having this kind of mentality because of what happened a couple of years ago. My so-called friends turned their backs on me when I stopped giving too much. They only remembered me when they needed something from me. Earlier on my family told me that they were just using me, and that I have to let them go and invest my time in people who will not use my weakness (being an over-giver) against me. I told them that I needed some time to figure things out. I wanted to see if these people were worth keeping. So, I stopped inviting them to the house, hanging out with them and treating them to countless free drinks. And I noticed that they suddenly cut their connection with me and even made up false stories just to make me feel bad about myself. I didn’t think that my actions would displease them. But this made me re-think my friendship with them. It was a hard truth to accept but these people only wanted me in their life because they were getting something from me.


And lastly, my misplaced fears. I didn’t want to come back to where I was before, when I didn’t have anything. I have this wrongful notion that if I don’t share my blessings, I’d end up losing everything that I have. Because of this fear, I tend to over give. 



But I realize that it’s time to stop being an over-giver. It’s not wrong to share what I have with others; I just need to find a balance in everything in my life. This way I can also attend to my own needs and in turn people will not become dependent on me. They have come to expect less from me and they became more independent, making my life less stressful.

I am not afraid of losing friends anymore because it’s better to have one true friend than a bunch of fake friends. Giving is in my DNA and I can’t change that just because of my previous bad experiences. I will continue to share what I have with others but this time, I will make sure that I will not give to the point of losing myself.