Since childhood, we are told not to be selfish. Instead, we are trained to consider others’ needs before ours. In other words, be selfless.
But is it good advice?
Being selfish is putting your own needs ahead of others, often to their detriment, and being selfless is putting others’ needs ahead of your own, often to your own detriment.
Caring for others is one of the most common values people hold. When they act in line with this value, it gives them a sense of meaning and fulfillment.
But the same people cringe when the concept of self-care is presented to them.
“Oh no, this is being selfish,” is a typical response.
If caring for others is meaningful, then why caring for yourself, and putting your own needs upfront is wrong?
We often get trapped into believing in selflessness and selfishness as polarised actions. We see that if we are either focusing on the needs of others (being selfless) or ignoring the needs of others (being selfish). We do not see a continuum where there is a spot for self-care to sit in the middle.
The balance between selfishness and selflessness is called “contribution” and requires the self-awareness to know what your needs are and how to meet them. Contribution is the desire to give others what they truly desire and fulfill our own desires.
It turns out that people who value caring for others tend to feel glory in sacrificing their own needs.
Being a martyr becomes their identity, and it impacts their behavior so much that they can’t say no to others’ requests. As a result, they have difficulty maintaining boundaries and usually have relationships that aren’t balanced.
Then there is an aversion to being seen as self-indulgent.
There is a perception that self-care is the same as being self-indulgent. However, self-indulgence is a temporary and often unhelpful way of trying to avoid facing and changing what is happening. Think about all of those chocolate ads where the person finally gets to relax and have a break.
Self-care is about growth and change. It is about shifting the imbalance and building a healthier, more resilient self.
When you value and practice self-care, it creates a ripple effect for you and those you care about.
Selflessness can only be sustained if your own desires are fulfilled. If your own well is empty, you won’t be able to help others. Choosing to deny your desires simply because they are YOUR desires is stupid. You are a person of this universe, as important as the persons you are serving. Then why your desires should be dismissed?
If you are hoping (or expecting) that others will be selfless and put your desires before their own, you are mistaken. I am sure you have experienced that multiple times but still failed to acknowledge that while you were being selfless, others were busy being selfish.
We respectable types, especially women, are raised to think a life well-spent means helping others. Plenty of self-help gurus affirm that kindness, generosity, and volunteering are the routes to happiness.
There’s truth here, but it generally gets tangled up with deep-seated guilt and self-esteem issues. Meanwhile, the people who boast all day on Twitter about their charity work aren’t being selfless at all; they are massaging their egos.
If you’re prone to thinking you should be helping more, that’s probably a sign that you could afford to direct more energy to your own ambitions and enthusiasms.
As the Buddhist teacher Susan Piver observes, it’s radical, at least for some of us, to ask how we’d enjoy spending an hour or day of “me” time.
And the irony is that you don’t serve anyone else by suppressing your true passions anyway.
More often than not, by doing your thing – as opposed to what you think you ought to be doing – you kindle a fire that helps keep the rest of us warm.
So what are you going to do today to be selfish?