Caring for others, like caring for ourselves, exists on a spectrum. Along this spectrum, we can distinguish several levels, each revealing something essential about human relationships.
1. The extreme of self-sacrifice
At the highest end of intensity, one might say: I only care for you. I don’t care for myself. I don’t care for anyone else.
This means sacrificing everything — oneself and even others — for the well-being of the beloved. It is an exaggerated form of caring, unsustainable and ultimately unhealthy.
2. The motherly level of caring
A step lower is the attitude: I care about you more than I care about myself. I will always put your needs before my own, your feelings before my feelings. I will not hurt myself to please you, but I will come second after you.
This is what I call the mother’s, or the motherly, level of caring. It is necessary at certain points in life and in certain contexts. Yet it cannot be sustained permanently. At times, one needs to compensate by being cared for rather than constantly caring.
Ideally, this alternation happens with the same person — today I put you first, tomorrow you put me first — but life does not always allow for such reciprocity.
3. The friend relationship
Another level is expressed as: I care for you and I care for myself at the same time, equally.
Neither one’s needs nor the other’s dominate.
This 50-50 balance is rare, for nature seldom offers perfect symmetry. Yet in some contexts it appears: when we both enjoy the same thing equally and share it together. Though exceptional, this state is beautiful. I call it the friend relationship — like that of companions or roommates — and it should be cherished whenever it arises, without making it an absolute expectation.
4. Prioritizing oneself while still caring
There is another level where I say: I care for you, and I really do. I want to see you happy, I want to support your growth, I want to contribute to your well-being. I think about you, and I don’t want to hurt you. But I care for myself a little more.
This means I will not make you my absolute priority. I will make myself the priority. For example, if my need is to be alone, and I know that your need is to talk and socialize, I will tell you: I’m sorry, my need right now is solitude. You can find someone else to talk to.
This is not selfishness. It is self-awareness — an honest recognition of one’s limits. And it is natural, even necessary, to stand here from time to time.
In fact, health lies in this oscillation: to bounce around the middle. The middle being the previous state of equal care — I care for you and I care for myself equally. From there, we move dynamically: sometimes I care for you a little more, sometimes I care for myself a little more.
There are moments when it is right to make oneself the priority. There are also moments when one finds within oneself the capacity to make the other the priority without hurting oneself. These moments are beautiful. We should not shy away from them. They contribute to our growth, to our Well-Being, and to our Good-Being.
5. Cancelling the other
At the opposite extreme lies the stance: I don’t care for you. I care only for myself. Here the other’s happiness, needs, and existence are ignored. One may “cancel” the other completely from one’s mind, perhaps temporarily, in order to heal, to regain energy, or to process trauma. Even then, the healthier pattern to return to is at least some measure of mutual care.
Within this extreme category, there are sub-levels:
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Benevolent detachment: I don’t actively care for you, but I still wish you well. I may wish every good for you, but I will not personally share in that good, nor participate in bringing it to you.
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Neutral detachment: I neither wish you good nor wish you harm. This is a cold neutrality — no active care, no active ill will.
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Wishing harm without acting: I wish you harm. I may want to see you pay the price of what you have done, but I will not deprive you of your rights or act directly against you.
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Active harm: I not only wish you harm, but I also act upon it: I try to ruin you, to block good from reaching you, to cause you suffering.
The dangerous oscillations
What is shocking — yet common — is how easily people move from one extreme to another. I have seen it in many relationships: someone once ready to sacrifice their very life for another can, within days or weeks, wish that same person dead.
This sudden swing — from wanting to die for someone to wanting that someone to die — reveals how volatile unexamined feelings can be.
Feelings, thoughts, and intentions
Feelings, when left unchecked, run wild. What we call feelings are often just projections of the mind — images, hormones, impulses. That is why one can move so quickly from “love” to “hate”: both were merely thoughts dressed as emotions.
The Sufi masters remind us: “The one who loves and then hates has lied twice.” Because neither was rooted in truth. Love, in such cases, was only a projection; hate, too, was only a projection.
To make our feelings real, we must bring intention into them. Intention is not a fleeting thought or mood. It is a conscious decision, an act of the heart’s intelligence. Only through intention do our relationships find grounding in reality. Without it, we are at the mercy of impulses (khawātir, in Sufi terminology) — wild, unprocessed, and destructive.
Choosing to be real
Thus, the invitation is simple yet profound: choose to be real. Scrutinize your feelings. Examine them. Do not become a victim of your own projections.
Anchor your relationships in conscious intention, so that you remain within the path of justice — neither cancelling yourself for the other, nor cancelling the other for yourself, but moving dynamically within the green zone of Well-Being and Good-Being.
