Looking around at the world today, you might view it as full of greed, narcissism, and selfishness. In the age of shameless self-promotion, selfies, and self-entitlement, it seems that people have an obsession with themselves. However, if you look at if from a different perspective, you might see that having a healthy relationship with yourself, putting your needs first, and loving yourself form a sturdy, unshakable foundation from which we can build a fulfilling life.
While narcissists put their own needs above others while using people for their personal gain, self-loving, self-actualized people see that they must garner a positive relationship with themselves so that they can form healthy relationships with others.
Researchers studying healthy self-esteem say that some self-love helps to promote positive mental health and well-being. Researchers have linked self-love to a decrease in sadness, depression and loneliness, and an increase in well-being, both with their relationships with themselves and with others. Having a healthy self-esteem also contributes to less feelings of anxiety and neuroticism.
However, too little self-love can lead to the opposite feelings and behaviors. In another study, researchers linked low self-esteem to higher levels of aggression and anti-social behavior.
“I choose to honor my feelings. I choose to give myself permission to get my needs met. I choose to make self-care a priority. I choose me.” – Daniell Koepke
If you still think being “selfish” doesn’t contribute positively to you or society at large, we hope that we can offer you a new perspective with the following points.
5 Reasons It’s Time To Start Being Selfish
1. Your relationships with others will improve.
Have you ever noticed the abundance of problems in relationships everywhere? No matter what kind of relationship, so many get destroyed by pain, guilt, betrayal, and other negative emotions. However, once you start to embody love yourself, you will see a huge transformation and upgrade in all of your relationships.
We only perpetuate pain and sorrow in the world because we haven’t fully healed our own wounds. Once you step past the victim mentality and realize that only you can take charge of your emotions, you will bring a whole new energy into your relationships. Also, you’ll leave behind those that no longer serve you, and attract people who truly uplift you.
Remember, life simply reflects our frequency levels at all times. If you want better relationships, you have to upgrade your own vibration in order to attract healthy, whole, loving people.
2. You’ll learn to truly love the person in the mirror.
Most people in the world, unfortunately, look to others for love and acceptance. They do very little to cultivate these feelings themselves, which explains why we have so much destruction and hatred in the world. Most of us seek outside of ourselves in order to find what we need, and when we don’t get it, we start to get frantic. We can’t fathom finding all we need within ourselves, because most of us feel so lost and broken.
If you feel this way, though, you need to take a harder look into your soul, and once you learn to sit in silence and truly love your own company, you’ll start to fall in love with that person looking back at you.
So, selfishness doesn’t have to mean only caring about ourselves – it means putting ourselves first and taking care of our needs so that we can offer more value to the world.
When you indulge in your own love, no one can take that away. When you learn to love yourself, you become a better human being, and you can’t possibly find any negatives in that.
3. You’ll have better health.
Inevitably, when you start to love yourself, you’ll want to put more loving, wholesome things into your body. You’ll want foods that energize you and promote health, not ones that poison your body, mind, and soul. Once you cultivate self-love, you’ll learn to get “selfish” with what you eat and how you choose to treat your body. You won’t give into peer pressures and eat or drink things that only weigh you down. You won’t mind taking extra time to chop fruits and vegetables to prepare a healthy meal. Running 5 miles every other day won’t seem like a chore; you’ll actually want to get up and get moving!
When you love yourself, you will want your health in tip-top shape, and will accept nothing less.
4. You’ll break down mental barriers.
Many of us in the world feel limited, maybe because of laws, the economy, money, not knowing how to buy stocks, relationships, taxes, our weight, health, or something else. We feel we can’t control much in our lives, including ourselves. Therefore, we resort to violence and destruction. The chaos in our world reflects how we as a collective feel about ourselves, but once you go within and combat your demons, you’ll set them free. You won’t feel limited by your own mind; you’ll feel like the master of it.
By putting ourselves first and removing all of those destructive thought patterns, the world becomes a little less burdened. Plus, you’ll feel much lighter and more productive without all of those heavy thoughts weighing you down.
5. You’ll make decisions that truly serve you well.
Once you have self-love within, you won’t want anything in your life that could potentially harm your state of bliss. You’ll want to remove what no longer serves you, and instead, welcome in the people and things that uplift your spirit. Decision-making will become easy, because you’ll know exactly what you want out of life and will know how to align energetically with those choices.
Related article: 15 Ways to Be More “Selfish” (And Why You Should)
So, hopefully you see now that selfishness goes hand-in-hand with selflessness. Becoming our best selves absolutely requires us to put ourselves first, but by doing this, we can offer more to the world. So, don’t hesitate to become a little more selfish. Leave that job that kills your soul, go on that vacation you’ve been dreaming of, leave a relationship that doesn’t bring you happiness, and keep following your heart. You have nothing to lose except yourself, and by getting rid of the old you through self-love, you’ll finally learn to treat yourself with respect and kindness.
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