I am selfish. You should be too.
I imagine a beautiful world filled with people like us.
Recently someone close to me said that I was selfish.
Actually I think they meant self-centered because selfish, according to a dictionary, means to be characterized by self-interest without regard to the welfare of others.
Well I do care about the welfare of others. So let’s suppose this person meant that I am self-centered.
As I sat with this, I realized I agreed.
I am self-centered.
I have spent the last few years focused on my desires, my wants, how I feel, and what is absolutely non-negotiable and true for me.
As a result I’ve quit a career, I’ve slowed down to create a coaching business that prioritized my authenticity over profit, I’ve outsourced many parts of caregiving to my children, I prioritize my sleep routine because it makes me feel good, and I don’t socialize when I don’t want to.
So yes indeed, I am self-centered.
But I also think everyone should be self-centered.
I see three main reasons for this.
First, my hunch is that we want to receive from others only when they are giving from their authentic self-centered selves.
Imagine, for instance, the opposite. Imagine the selfless person who is aching for a good night’s sleep yet decides to stay up a bit later so they can return their loved one’s call out of duty.
However, if I were the loved one in that situation, would I want to receive that call made out of obligation?
A selfless person wouldn’t quit their job and take one that pays less if it means their child would have to leave their beloved school.
But what is that child learning about how to live their life as they watch their grown-up go to a job they can hardly bear?
On the other hand, a self-centered person declines the invite to a third night of holiday parties that would leave them sleep-deprived and depleted.
The self-centered host is sad to miss their company and understands the drain of social events when one just needs an early evening in.
And so I have concluded in my life- if this thing you give or do for me is not what you truly want, then I don’t want it either.
Second, I believe we improve the world by inviting others to their freedom. Yes, freedom.
If you believe from my first point that the world wants you to have what your heart desires, it is freeing to know clearly what that desire is. And then it frees others. According to Toni Morrison, “the function of freedom is to free someone else.”
Here is a small example. When my colleague does the unthinkable and declines an invitation to an early morning meeting because they prefer to sleep in, they have implicitly invited me to do the same in my life.
Malcolm Gladwell has written about riot theory in The New Yorker. He quotes Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter who describes a riot as “a social process driven by our thresholds… the number of people who need to be doing some activity before we agree to join them.”
Well, I think the same applies to any social behavior. With the help of watching my colleague successfully set a boundary, I can set myself free of a cultural norm like accepting meetings no matter what time they are. I have also lowered the threshold that others might need to be free of it too.
And third, when I take care of myself I take care of everyone around me.
This is related to the good old, “put your oxygen mask on first before helping others” adage.
I have a proof by contrapositive here: Last month the non-profit I help held a board vote on dissolution of the business. It didn’t pass. But the reason it was put to vote is because a key member of the team is burned out and can’t continue. They can no longer give to the organization because they don’t have the capacity to give. So without the proverbial oxygen mask for ourselves, we can’t last very long. We can’t give what we don’t have.
There is another piece to this that I love. In order to make my life better by taking care of my own needs, I have to be in touch with what I want. Knowing that my needs and wants matter and treating them as such is the biggest form of self-love. And it’s impossible to do that for myself and not be able to recognize a want or desire in others as something to be honored and heard. Every time I work to understand deeply what it is that I want, I am working to understand the same in others.
I imagine an incredible world with self-centered people.
I imagine a world where people speak authentically and clearly to one another and connect at a very deep level. One where we know our own egos intimately, respect it, and respect the same in others. And a world where our biggest wish for ourselves is the same for others.
We are all motivated by an unconscious need. And when we center on ourselves, we go deep. We can uncover all the unconscious needs like fear that keep us from being the kind and powerful beings we really are.
I love self-centeredness because it’s the momentum behind identifying those needs and bringing them to light. When we do that we understand ourselves better, we can offer ourselves compassion, and we can give that to others around us.
And as Suzanne Eder says in What You Seek is Seeking You “You are always doing your part when you honor your heart of hearts.”
Hello, I’m Serena. I am a life coach. I help high achievers live their life purpose without giving anything up. If you would like to receive thought-provoking content, join my email list. If you are interested in 1:1 coaching, get in touch with me here.
