Selfish is not a word you want to be called. You’re taught from a young age to share, to be considerate, and to avoid being selfish. For many, just the sound of the word alone stops rational thought and triggers a state of defensiveness.
What? Me? I’m not selfish. How dare you?
But selfishness isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I’d argue that it’s necessary to focus on yourself. You need to be selfish to be happy, productive, and develop healthy relationships. Selfishness is self-care in a world that asks too much of you.
“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others,” said bell hooks. She passed away around the time I wrote this post, and her words are fitting. She spoke about what it means to love yourself. I’m reclaiming the word selfish as an important kind of self-love. I dedicate this post to her.
When you put others’ needs first, you find yourself pulled in too many directions. It drains your energy and leaves you without the resources to tend to yourself. Selfishness helps you stay whole.
When you focus on your needs first, people will call you selfish. Let them.
It’s not selfish. It’s a matter of priority.
A friend of mine in the US has an open-door policy for me whenever I visit. But in the fifteen years since we started traveling, she hasn’t once visited me. I always go to her.
It frustrates me that I have to go out of my way if I want to see her, and I’ve wondered why she won’t do the same for me. The word selfish has crept into my thoughts about her, too.
I finally asked her why she hasn’t made an effort to visit me. Turns out, she’s petrified of flying, which has intensified post-pandemic. She has limited vacation time, too, so the two days of travel it requires to get to me is too cumbersome. That’s her boundary. Her mental health and time take priority.
I have a choice to accept her boundaries and work with them or push against her boundaries and expect something from her that doesn’t work for her. I choose to respect her needs.
On the other side, there are times when I visit the US and can’t make a detour to see her. Like our first trip home post-pandemic. It was a family visit, including two very difficult visits with sick family members. She understood that my priority wasn’t her for that visit. Our friendship works because she gives me the same space to make my choices as I give her.
There are plenty of other people I no longer see when I visit because we weren’t able to accept each other’s boundaries.
???? It’s ok to put yourself first.
???? It’s ok for you to say no.
???? It’s ok to say goodbye to someone who doesn’t meet your needs.
To be selfish is a choice to take care of yourself no matter what others want you to do. Sometimes, you’ll choose things that distance you from the people you love. Other times, you’ll choose to ignore yourself and put others first. How you find the balance between these things is, like writing, a practice.
Embrace the discomfort of people not being happy when you choose yourself. The more you do it the easier it gets. Here are nine ways to put yourself first and be more selfish in the new year.
Forgive yourself when others don’t.
Forgiveness allows you to let go of the self-destructive energy that happens when you hold onto feelings of anger and hurt.
Earlier this year, I got into “a thing” with a good friend. The TL,DR? We were working on a project together, and I was frustrated when instead of meeting a deadline we’d both agreed to meet, she disappeared.
It wasn’t the first time she’d dropped a project like that. Previously when this happened, I messaged her to ask if she was ok, before gently raising the topic “hey can you follow up on this when you have a chance.” The second time it happened, I’d had enough. I wrote her a quick and straightforward email to “please tie things up and finish this project.” She responded by unfriending me on Twitter and Instagram.
Was my tone too harsh? Did she misinterpret my words in a way that wasn’t fair? I’ll never know for sure because she never got back to me. It hurt, but that was her choice based on her needs. That we didn’t have a conversation to talk things through added anger to the frustration and hurt I was already feeling.
There was no way to find closure with her, so I decided to forgive her. I forgave her for doing what I perceived as harmful. I forgave the mistakes I made, too.
I don’t need her permission or input to forgive, either. It doesn’t matter if she wants forgiveness. It doesn’t matter if she thinks I’m totally wrong. Forgiveness allowed me to come to peace with the situation and move on with or without her.
Don’t negotiate your boundaries.
My sister-in-law advocates for parents of children with special needs, and she is a master at setting boundaries. I once saw someone try to debate whether or not a child needed extra support in the classroom. The way she stated her needs and held to them was impressive.
Juby: This child needs an individualized education program.
School representative: We don’t have the staff for this.
Juby: Then you’ll have to find additional staff because this student needs it.
SR: We don’t have the budget for it.
Juby: State law requires that schools give children with special needs the support they need, and this child needs an individualized program.
Your boundaries may not be upheld by state law, but you can make your needs known in the same way. What you want is what you want. Once you’ve stated your boundary, there’s nothing left to argue.
Of course, that doesn’t mean people will respect boundaries which brings me to the next item on the Be More Selfish list.
Keep a small inner circle.
I threw a big holiday party the December before the pandemic. Almost a hundred people showed up. It was amazing to dance and toast the new year with our community here in Argentina. But when the pandemic hit a few months later, I stopped seeing all but a handful of them.
The pandemic forced me to narrow my circle.
Maria was part of my very small coronavirus bubble. We talked. Our kids played. The time we spent time together kept me sane during the hardest months of the pandemic.
Lily, Lola, and I chatted via WhatsApp group. We cheered each other on when things are going well, and we reminded each other how awesome we are when we needed encouragement.
Jen, my oldest best friend, is the one I tell everything. Our relationship is defined by acceptance.
Once the vaccine arrived, and we could see more people, I found it overwhelming to dive back into human interaction. I enjoyed the peace that came with limiting my interpersonal relationships and realized I’d been spreading my resources too thin, often with people who didn’t reciprocate.
I’m lucky to have a lot of people in my life – from the parents in my kid’s class who remind the rest of us what we need to send to school for the class project to the people I know on social media who share writing resources to my friends from grad school who meet for dumplings when we’re in NYC.
But there are only a few people I turn to when I’m truly in need. Those are the people who get my attention when I don’t have as much to give.
When you stop feeding the relationships that don’t serve your needs, some of those connections wither away, leaving more time for yourself and the people closest to you. When you focus on fewer friendships, you allow yourself to develop deeper connections built on trust.
It’s not selfish to say goodbye.
I’m exhausted. But really, who isn’t? The last two years have been a drain, and I’ve had to make choices about how I spend my time. I’ve left Facebook groups, unsubscribed from newsletters, quit jobs, and turned down offers of work. I even left my writing group.
It’s a relief not to get so many Facebook notifications and newsletters, but my writing group? That was a tough decision. This is the group that inspired me to write a young adult novel based on my high school experiences in an Orthodox Jewish community. They gave feedback on the proposal I sent to the agent who signed me after reading it.
I am forever grateful for their input.
I left because the others in the group wrote literary fiction, and I don’t. The time it took to write, edit and give feedback took away from the nonfiction and genre fiction at the center of my writing roadmap.
I decided to take a month-long break to see what life was like without the group. I wrote a draft of a book, had five new articles commissioned for commercial publications, and developed a new partnership. I was more productive in one month than the six months prior. It was clear I couldn’t go back after my break.
Sometimes people get upset when you stop being part of their group because they’re used to you making time for them. If your well-being is important to them, they’ll eventually understand.
I will not have my life narrowed down.
Another quote from bell hooks. “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.”
Compromise is necessary whether you’re trying to manage the edges of relationships, but compromise ends when what someone else wants requires you to be less of who you are.
Your life will grow larger as you learn and do more. Beware of anyone who asks you to shrink.
If I am not for myself who will be for me?
This first sentence of a saying by the first-century BC scholar Rabbi Hillel reminds you to advocate for yourself because if you don’t, no one will.
Writing my book about seventeen-year-old Evie growing up with her religious aunt has brought back memories of growing up Orthodox. When I lived in the religious Jewish community, I had a sense of peace. The community structure answered most of life’s big questions for me.
But when their rules dictated who I could talk to, what I could read, and whether or not I’d go to college, they stopped being a blessing and became a bind.
One of my rabbis even told me that if I didn’t stick to religion, I’d “never achieve my potential in life.” It was devastating to hear these words from a teacher I admired. Now, I see it as manipulative and cruel advice from someone who put his own values and needs before mine.
I can’t imagine what my life would have been like had I chosen the path he deemed correct for me, and I’ve never regretted being selfish and ignoring his warning.
If I am only for myself then what am I?
This is the second sentence of Hillel’s teaching. There’s no way to be part of a community without sometimes putting the needs of others above your own. How do you find a balance between being in service to the group and meeting your own needs?
I follow the group when the overall direction of the group is my direction.
I’m happy to give last-minute feedback on a story for someone in The Workshop. I want them to publish and feedback is crucial to finishing stories.
I volunteered at our synagogue to raise money for a new playground. The synagogue has welcomed us and I want to give back.
When acting with the group requires me to go against my core values then the answer is no. I quit my job at a travel magazine because they asked me to lie to our writers about how much they paid. If they’re asking me to lie, they’re asking others to lie to me.
I stopped having coffee with moms from my daughter’s school because it made me uncomfortable how much they badmouthed other moms we knew. If they’re talking shit about others, they’re talking about me, too.
it’s hard to stand against the group when you disagree. It’s easier when you know how holding the line benefits you.
And if not now, when?
The third and final sentence in Hillel’s three-part saying.
When should you start advocating for yourself? When should you decide to walk away when someone else pushes you to places you don’t want to go? When should you decide to be more selfish even though others don’t understand?
Im lo achshav, u’matai. If not now, when.
Trust yourself and your core values to guide you as you navigate the lines between yourself and what the rest of the world wants.
Love yourself first.
bell hooks taught at City College of New York at the same time I was there getting my MA in Creative Writing. She spoke about the difference between teaching at City College and Yale.
To paraphrase, critical thinking is a pathway to transformation. Students at Yale arrived in her class already believing in their own successes. Her students at City College often came from marginalized backgrounds and didn’t have the same sense of agency.
Critical thinking allows you to see through the messages that tell you you’re not good enough. Critical thinking teaches you how to fall in love with yourself.
bell hooks said it best.
“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn’t it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim “You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself” made clear sense. And I add, “Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.”
