Selflessness can also be a sickness

Being selfless is not always good.

If you neglect yourself, your own feelings, your own ideas (basically the essential parts of yourself), then you thereby harm yourself and also the people around you.

It is not good to care only about others — if everyone did that, then people might even become frustrated: “oh, no — don’t worry about little old me…”.

If you are happy, or sad, or if you appreciate other people around you, then it is absolutely right for you to express your feelings — remember that: your feelings.

Why are some people hesitant to share their own thoughts, ideas, feelings, points of view, etc.? After much thinking about this, I have come to this conclusion (which may be incorrect and therefore might need to be revised): they worry about their reputation.

In my opinion, you have no reputation.

If you ask 1000 random people, at least 999 of them won’t even know who you are. Maybe only 1 in a million people know you exist, are familiar with your personality or could pick you out in a crowd. These several hundred or thousands of people will also not all think about you in the same way, they will not talk about you in the same way,… and if they are unhappy with you, then if you apologize they will probably change their mind. If they don’t, then maybe you should worry less about your own reputation and consider whether their opinion about you matters in any way.

It probably doesn’t.