Have you ever been called selfish? I certainly have, and not without a reason.
When I tell people that I am working a new business venture to help people love themselves, I often hear, “Isn’t there enough self-focus in the world? It’s just selfish to always think about oneself!”
While these two terms seem to be related, when you dig deeper, you will see how diametrically different they are. I’ve spent the last decade of my life navigating through these two concepts.
Louise Hay said in her famous book You Can Heal Your Life, if you love yourself, everything in your life works.
Then, Zig Ziglar said, you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
Both statements are pointing to the same thing.
Self-love is when you take responsibility for your own life. You intimately know this human being that is you—your value, your talents, your quirks. You know that you have something to contribute to this world. And you know that you simply cannot afford to run yourself into the ground while doing it. You need maintenance, rest, and regular checkups. Because when you do that, you will be of much better assistance to those around you, won’t you?
You will be pleasant to be around. You will be present to hear what others have to say—to get into someone else’s world, and make their day better (a.k.a. get what they want).
Selfishness, on the contrary, results from lack of self-love. Selfishness happens when you, for whatever reasons, don’t take care of yourself. Maybe it’s not enough sleep, or not enough fun, or wrong kinds of foods that you are feeding yourself. Maybe you expect others to take care of you, and they don’t. Then what? You become irritable, angry, unhappy, and basically unable to pay attention to anything but yourself. That is irresponsible and could even be harmful to others.
Selfishness is rigid... as if you have to have your way, right now, or the world is going to fall apart. Selfishness is fearful. But self-love is relaxed. It knows that more good is coming your way every minute of every day. It can focus on what is good, right here and right now.
Examples of selfishness are many, you can probably give me a dozen right right now. It so happens that in our culture, very few people truly love themselves. It’s not an accusation, but a fact we have to live with: most people lack self-acceptance, and therefore tend to be selfish.
So, in this culture, self-love requires courage. The courage to take time for yourself when your children need you. The courage to tell your friend that you can’t help her because you need to spend an afternoon napping. Whatever your specific requirements are to stay in top shape, you have to constantly defend them.
So expect people to be disappointed and upset. Selfish people tend to get upset if things don’t go their way.
But by practicing your self-love, by setting your boundaries you are being generous, both with yourself and others. You know your limitations, and you are not taking, you are actually giving. When you are full, you can share your overflow with others. And, teach by example while you are at it!
Right now, sit down and write down five absolute yeses, and five absolute nos: five things you have to do regularly to maintain a happy, productive state. And five things that you will absolutely not do, ever again.
I believe this is the generation that ends the long cycle of self-hatred, addictions, isolation that has been the hallmark of our culture. I believe it is time for us to learn this new skill, and teach it to our children.
This is what this blog is about—the practical, working techniques to finally fall in love with yourself—and have everything in your life work.