I never learned how to be selfish. My whole life I’ve found comfort in putting other’s needs before my own, and it’s come to turn against me. The most important thing I’ve learned as of recent is self-love. This harmonious utopia we preach and tell our girlfriends, in the words Jermaine Cole, “Love yourself, girl, or nobody will.” But how? How do you tell someone who’s devoted 20 years to giving, with no expectation for the same in return, to love themselves? Of course I’m not advocating to not love who you are and to take pride in self-empowerment and growth. But in regards to putting yourself before someone else it can be a constant emotional battle. That being said I never learned to be selfish, until recently.
Life recently threw a curve ball at me, most would call it heartbreak, I guess that’s what we’ll call it here. Heartbreak, a selfless person will never tell you that they’ve heartbroken. We'll find ways to excuse the feeling and give it another title, to save the heart-breaker. This also could just be my delusional hopeless romantic inner monologue peaking through the keyboard. But through this, I’ve learned that in experiences like these, selfishness comes into play. So, the burning question, how does one become selfish?
The most basic of principles to being selfish is recognizing your selflessness is probably not benefiting you much. It’s a pretty crappy feeling to give all and get little to nothing in return; this can extend to more than just relationships. Selflessness portrays a lot of qualities that may be confusing to understand if it isn’t in your nature. You give without being asked, you prioritize things that may coincide with your personal agenda, and you forget to check up on yourself. Again, I’m not undermining my fellow beautiful selfless souls; it’s an amazing quality to be able to spread love and give.
Another principle to being selfish is to put your self first. This one is the one that I’ve struggled with the most. It’s one of those, ‘easier said than done’ standards. It really gets easier though, when you’re thrown into a terrible place of flawed TLC, you basically have no other choice but to put yourself first. Putting yourself first feels almost like a terrible insecurity to extremely selfless beings. We think that selfish = greedy, it’s a peripheral outlook that we can’t seem to understand. And to be honest, this is probably a cycle of being in that place, where you tell yourself you’d do it all over again, even if you expected the same consequences; even more of a reason to save yourself the recycled trauma and learn to be selfish.
Eventually, you come to a place where things don’t really make sense but you have no other choice but to put yourself first. Everything comes full circle and that’s really what gets your through times like these. Remember, heartbreak is temporary, self-love is eternal. But listen, summer is around the corner and what better way to focus on you than to soak in sun rays, splurge on yourself, and sip on your ice cold lemonade (Thanks, Bey).
