This is perhaps a misleading title. The word self-care might be more appropriate, and it’s fortunately one that’s more and more commonly recognised and advocated in pop-psychology these days. But selfishness unfortunately never is.
In a world that constantly celebrates generosity, benevolence, giving, selflessness and putting others first as virtues, we can easily come to forget the opposite: that self-care, sometimes even ‘being selfish’ if need be, can be absolutely vital. In fact, I want to go as far as to propose that looking after ourselves take precedence over selflessness.
I believe when we are entirely self-sufficient, and feeling full, blessed, content, grateful and left wanting nothing, it’s natural to then want to share that with the world. To give back to it, and to wish the same for others. It’s only then that we have the full mental-emotional space to think of others. It’s really very hard to care about others’ needs, or to be genuinely benevolent with our motives, when we are starving to have our own met. And it is even more impossible to have a relationship that is free, enlightening and completely joyous.
So it’s imperative we take active responsibility to attend our own needs, whether material, physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. Or we start to rely on others, sometimes unwittingly, to fill them for us. And that’s where problems arise.
Looking for someone else to fulfill us is a really unreasonable and imprudent ask. Not to mention a dangerous one. It not only places a huge demand and responsibility on them, it’s an unnecessary burden for them to have to carry. It’s us being lazy. After all, if you can’t look after you, how would you expect someone else who knows you less intimately to?
Frustration soon builds, perhaps also resentment. And we start walking around as needy, hungry, unfulfilled energy-vampires, stuck in relationships that we secretly resent, reading self-help books and Cosmo pages that tell us how to seduce our guy, get him to buy us jewelry, say the right things… just to make us feel special.
What’s going on underneath all this? That we are firstly feeling lacking in ourselves; or we wouldn’t seek the external validation from things, words or events in order to have to feel good. And secondly, wanting or expecting that that fulfillment should come from someone else, like our poor significant other in the example I just gave.
What we want, or should at least strive for, is to come to our relationships — romantic or otherwise — already full and overflowing, and ready to share ourselves with others, and with no huge demands or expectations in return. Not be a piece of emotional baggage or make others our crutches.
I take the trouble to write about this because I often hear people talk about others or situations with undertones of expectations that those people, or situations, should be responsible for their happiness or needs in some way.
If you’re not happy at a party, leave. If you’re not happy with a job, look for options. If you’re not happy with a relationship, change something. If a conversation stops being interesting, lead it elsewhere. If it rains, carry an umbrella. If you’re bored… now, I’m not even going to start with this one (start examining how you look at and engage with the world, is basically it. Because it is a myriad of opportunities, and overflowing with wonderment and curiosities, if one just has the eyes to see it).
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes; in seeing the universe through the eyes of another, one hundred others…bin seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees.
– Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922)
Basically, if you’re unhappy about anything, the best person to do something about it is YOU. Change the thought that’s causing the unhappiness (I would definitely check The Work by Byron Katie out), or change the circumstances. It is important and empowering to awaken and fully engage as an agent in the world, not some helpless victim to which people and situations just happen to.
And yes, this sometimes involves disappointing, displeasing and even hurting others. Take leaving a marriage that is dead, for example. Stakes are huge: entire extended families are involved, there are issues of face, pride and honour, there are children who will be affected, there are inter-dependent socio-economic arrangements to be disentangled, there are social intricacies to navigate with friends and activity circles, and security, money and estates to be fore-gone, possibly even business or, as in the olden-days, socio-political arrangements that affect livelihoods and interests of many others, and of course much sadness and hurt feelings. I will acknowledge that it can be VERY difficult. Especially when the world tells us we should be thinking of our self last. But in such situations, it’s a necessary evil, and we must give ourselves permission and have the courage despite them to ‘be selfish’. Or risk our soul’s slow, but definite, demise.
I often also suspect a classic mistake when I hear people say they are looking for a boy or girlfriend. There is nothing wrong with looking for partners. What’s wrong is the idea that that person will fill some void within us, a void that we have not taken the trouble or perhaps not even the know-how to fill on our own. But there is this idea that finding this special person will make us happy. And this is of course the typical dream that mainstream media, pop-culture and our dominant social narrative sells us about love, fairy-tale romances and perfect endings. But how can someone else make us happy if we ourselves haven’t learnt how to even make our self happy? (‘Happiness’ is, by the way, one of those contentious ideas. I would recommend listening to this talk “What is Happiness“, by Caroline West).
“Seek not happiness from your relationships.
Rather, bring your own happiness to your relationships.”