So I’ve recently heard of the idea of “pathological altruism”: engaging in altruist acts that are actually harmful. While that category is quite broad, part of it includes people self-sacrificing in order to help others to the point that they face extreme burnout and harm to their health and well-being.
Why is that bad?
I think it can be laudable to sacrifice, even to the point where it hurts you. Many people sacrifice their lives, basically everything they have, in order to help others. I have deep respect and admiration for those people. I want to be more like that.
We don’t want people to sacrifice for us. We don’t like to see others suffer. We say that they need to take care of themselves first.
But if someone dedicates their life to others, they take care of themselves only as a means to other ends. The bad thing about burnout is it means you can’t help other people anymore.
Taking care of yourself doesn’t need to be a priority. It’s just a helpful thing to do so that you can take care of others.
And that means that if you dedicate yourself to help, it will hurt sometimes. It will mean long hours and exhausting days. It can be difficult and hard.
Nights without sleep helping children.
Coming home hungry after a long time at work.
Talking to someone in a crisis and crying in empathy.
Dropping everything and driving hours and hours because they need you.
Looking at an almost empty bank account and donating anyway.
Those are not problematic moments. They are sacred.
Heather Hoyt 
I like to think of self sacrifice not as sacrificing my self for other people, but sacrificing myself for a greater whole. That can be my family, community, the kingdom of God.
And then remembering that I am part of that greater whole and treat myself with the same expectations as others in that whole. So I can still have time to pursue my own interests, especially if they help out the people around me. And my physical health and needs are just are important as others. So it’s okay to ask someone to watch kids so I can take a nap if I’m up late putting a baby to sleep.
The goal is to make the whole better than the sums of it’s parts. And we do that by all sacrificing for each other.
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I think people can be very uncomfortable with the thought of self-sacrifice. We really want to hold on to our own interests and desires in some way or another. And maybe is the right way forward: we should never give away ourselves completely, and our sacrifice can also always include valuing our own interests.
But what if you don’t view your own needs as important as everyone else around you? What if your needs are secondary and down the list and only as a means to the end? Do you think that is wrong and harmful?
I’m not trying to say that we can’t pursue our own interests, or that we need to sacrifice all the time to be good people. I like taking care of myself and pursuing my interests. So I think there are multiple good things that can conflict.
I’m just trying to look at those moments when we aren’t taking care of ourselves and asking: Is that really so bad?
I wonder if individualism keeps creeping in always around the edges, and that we are trying to hang on to something that we just don’t need to. That sacrificing yourself all the way can be okay.
But maybe if we go with that view, we just become self-destructive and fail to recognize our own worth.
I don’t know right now. I’ve literally been thinking of these questions for months and months and don’t have an answer, but I find the questions very interesting anyway.
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There is some sort of paradox here, something about losing yourself in order to find yourself.
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