Selfishness, It's All About You

Selfish:

(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.
synonyms: egocentric, egotistic, egotistical, egomaniacal, self-centred, self-regarding, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, self-seeking, self-serving, wrapped up in oneself, inward-looking, introverted, self-loving;

That all sounds kind of terrible doesn't it? While only ever doing selfish deeds might indeed be some of those things, you shouldn't let it stop you making selfish decisions.

I'm looking at a word with this meaning:

Selfish:

making a choice that is for the benefit of your own well being.

As children we're taught that we should be nice to others and always be considerate. That's exactly how it should be. From the beginning our parents are there to make all our major decisions for us, but at some point we learn to fend for ourselves.

As adults we're stuck with using our best judgement, and for most people (it's highly evident that it's not everyone) that means that if others are affected by it we'll more than likely pick an outcome that will appease the most people, and not the result that we might prefer.

If it makes no difference to us, then some of the time that's a perfectly reasonable way to make decisions. But at some point that decision just becomes an automatic reaction.

I realised that I hadn't made a decision for myself in a long time. Even the simplest of things I would go with the easy option. Well, the one that I knew would make the other person happy. That wasn't always the easy option. Or to put it bluntly, the option that would put a preemptive stop to any whining.

Photo by Eli DeFaria on Unsplash

Honestly, the first time I made that choice I felt relieved. The request came into my brain and I sighed inwardly as I went to utter the fateful words "whatever you fancy"... but they didn't come out. Instead I said "actually I'd rather..." and that was my first real selfish decision. There's a fine line between being accommodating and being a push over, and I'd had enough. That particular decision didn't make any difference to either of us really, but if you looked at it historically it never went my way.

At that point you stop and think. If the little decisions never go my way, what about the big ones? I had been tricked and manipulated into so many decisions that I just didn't know what I wanted.

Now it's time to think harder about everything. Things should go your way once in a while, no one should do everything because it's what someone else wants to do.

You have the right to be a bit selfish, especially if some of the bigger decisions will make an impact on your general mental health. I've said it before, but it's always worth saying again... you've got one big task (in this case, life), and if one little thing goes right for you then the whole thing doesn't seem quite so challenging. It just so happens that this task isn't quite as simple as the "tidying your bedroom" analogy. Tidying your bedroom is about ten tasks, life is probably around a million, give or take, so you should be getting your fair share of little decisions.

Always look out for number one. The only person who is going to look after you is you. Those aren't bad things to say. Looking after all aspects of yourself should be your number one priority (without breaking the law of course). At some point you might find someone you truly love, and then you won't be the only person looking out for your well being. But if it's just you and you're surviving on your own, maybe you shouldn't just be surviving, maybe you should be living.