Priorities

Today I was reading Niehime to Kemono no Ou and came across this scene... It's a strong scene, isn't it?

Giving a bit of context, the guy that is apologizing and being all humble is the king of a small nation, the guy with the evil look and big fangs is the king of a big nation that is visiting the smaller nation. What happened just now was that the princess of the small nation just attempted to commit suicide and was stopped by the queen of the big nation.

Maybe now it can give a bit of a better context of why I think it's a strong scene~


Well, reading this just got me thinking though... Don't we sometimes totally lose sight of our priorities? Like... We have people to please, facades to maintain, societal norms to follow, family members to impress, bosses to obey... Isn't it a lot? And well... Some things are just more important than all that.

However, all those other things are also important... And I think we can sometimes get so so buried in our own worries and our own multitude of responsibilities, that we end up forgetting our most important and basic things, the things we should prioritize the most end up being left behind.

This time it was the daughter, and like... While I'm sure it does happen out there, I think it's not the case for most nuffians to already have children and actively neglect them... But then... What about our younger siblings? What about our loved ones? What about our parents? And what about... Ourselves?

I think a bunch of piled up responsibilities can really make us forget about caring for ourselves... "I want to play that game... No time, need to work." "I want to go meet my friends... Can't do it, I have a test tomorrow." "I'm finally getting a vacation from my job, so I'll sit home and relax... No can do, brother got sick and I should go visit him in the hospital everyday" Don't those kind of things just keep on happening? We keep on neglecting ourselves because of higher powers and bigger problems, but... Is this really alright?

In the end, who is the most important person in the world if not ourselves? Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't ignore the people around you... But if you don't care for yourself, who will? If you never meet your friends, won't you grow distant? If you don't ever enjoy your hobbies, won't you get super stressed? If you don't ever relax, won't you go crazy? And... If you don't exercise, won't you have a heart-attack?

Those worries are all real, we can't just ignore them because "It's just for now, soon enough I'll have time for myself", the first person we tend to neglect is ourselves, it seems like the whole world is more important than what we care about, so... Aren't the priorities completely turned upside down?

I have no idea what causes people to act like that, but I've seen it happen way too many times... It's not a particularly new line of thought to me, I always thought I should prioritize myself exactly because I saw how little my parents cared for themselves... This chapter just gave me a different look at it though. Sometimes we are just blinded by so many things, that we really forget the obvious, don't we?


I really recommend Niehime for anyone that enjoys shoujo btw, it's a great manga and the characters are pretty well-developed~