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Sacrifice and softness
People believe in sacrifice and define it as giving up or even destroying something that you care about or love for a greater good. Sacrifice is a severe kind of surrender, because people can only sacrifice something that they presumably would prefer not to give up: like parents, who sacrifice their sleep for the sake of their infant; like a career woman, who sacrifices her marriage for her work; or like a soldier, who sacrifices his life, period. Sacrifice is difficult and may bring altruistic pleasure but just as likely none. Sacrifice results in loss. Selfish people don’t sacrifice.
I’m not especially selfish (if selfish means operating only for one’s own benefit), but I don’t believe in sacrifice as the culture I live in defines it, and I don’t understand the attendant self-punishment or necessary suffering. I’m a strong person, but that differs from being hard, and my hardness does neither me nor anyone in my life, from intimates to strangers, any good. For me, sacrifice is a softening of blocked or inhibited feelings, of fears that have collected in the body. That way, sacrifice is pleasure, like a sigh of relief or healing tears.
Sacrifice seems like a pleasure when it emanates from love. When we sacrifice for someone else, we learn something about ourselves.