From the author: What does it mean “you can’t be selfish”? In a family, this synonym is “sacrifice yourself, your boundaries - you should feel reasonably good here.” And you sit, without being selfish, and wait for another family member, in order to establish contact with you, to walk in his muddy boots through your garden of peace and harmony. If you say that this is not possible, you will immediately become a bastard, an egoist, a person who does not know how to live in a family. If you don’t respond, you’re great, but you’re stained with someone else’s dirt. “She came to visit them without an invitation. Carefully examining their apartment, she told them how and what should be wiped. “Thank you,” they said. “We will take it into account,” they echoed. Although in fact, internal irritation grew and grew. And it grew on itself, because they could not understand why they were putting up with all this, listening to comments about their apartment. The only thing they knew, or rather felt, was that they had to endure it, playing out their role correctly.” My mother-in-law is not a monster. She is kind, not evil, and has a positive attitude towards life. She seems to like me, not completely, of course, but in principle she can tolerate me next to her son. We congratulate each other on all holidays, go to visit once a month, say compliments, laugh at each other’s unfunny jokes, take care of her cat when she’s away, and so on. Looking at her, I can say that for me, my picture of the world, she is strange, different, not like me. She is strange - she only talks about what interests her, does not listen to others, believes that she knows everything and everyone, and the worst thing is that she does it with a sweet smile and a quiet voice. When I met her, I realized that the most cunning and tough manipulator is the person who gently holds you by the elbow and hums in your ear with a soft voice what needs to be done. I get an amazing feeling next to her - the feeling that she allows me to be with her son, that she gave him to me, but he belongs to her. And all this is soft and unpretentious. I am not a manipulator - but a straightforward person who says how and what will happen - I am for a collision with reality, even if it is a face on the asphalt. And in a family, like in any system, there are its own rules, its own norms. For some reason, in the family system, an ingrained rule that applies to many families is that the elders are right, and also that one cannot be selfish. Moreover, with the first one, that “the elders are right,” we will stop, referring to various life experiences, although the number of years lived does not always equal the quality of years lived. But what does it mean “you can’t be selfish”? In a family, this synonym is “sacrifice yourself, your boundaries - you should feel reasonably good here.” And you sit, without being selfish, and wait for another family member, in order to establish contact with you, to walk in his muddy boots through your garden of peace and harmony. If you say that this is not possible, you will immediately become a bastard, an egoist, a person who does not know how to live in a family. If you don’t respond, you’re great, but you’re stained with someone else’s dirt. This often happens in families. You can talk with older generations, negotiate, but do not forget - the older a person is, the more rigid the mental processes, the less mobile the psyche becomes. And somehow I doubt that stubborn family members will want to go to family therapy, which is expensive and it is unclear how long it will take if people are not motivated. Therefore, this is a natural question. And what is more important in a family is to sit in your own Garden of Eden, fenced off from others, showing yourself to be a bad person. Or watch your roses get destroyed, proving to you that you can’t be an egoist? I always choose to be an egoist who cares about my psychological harmony - I’m ready to be responsible for the consequences of my behavior, but I’m sad that in order to feel good - you have to be bad for someone else. What do you choose??