Why I hate the word ‘selfish’

The word ‘selfish’ is considered negative. It is used to call someone when they are lacking consideration for other people and are concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure. People who show zero empathy towards others problems and solely strive for their own good and success and would not hold back to hurt someone else to achieve their own goals (sounds a bit like some Slytherin tendencies, not saying it’s all of them) Anyway, being called selfish isn’t a nice way to describe someone, although some don’t mind in the slightest. Another word I relate to selfish is arrogant, not because it means the same thing, but because I relate it a lot to each other. As a child I have been called arrogant a lot. All I talked about was gymnastics until I was probably 15 years old. Sounds weird, but that’s all I knew back then. I had no social life as I went home from school, watched a little tv, did my homework and then went to training 3-4 hours every single day of the week. The only day I had off was Sundays. This meant in school, that I was never invited to go shopping, never to the movies or birthdays of others. Not that I had time anyway.

What did this mean for me? Well I only talked about something I knew about and that was gymnastics. This turned into people calling me arrogant and selfish only talking about myself and apparently only thinking about myself. Hearing this for years, not having any friends really in my class, I turned quiet, although those who know me now, know how loud and extroverted I am. I started feeling judged by everyone and everything. I started overthinking and took everything to heart. Always. This has turned me into a people pleaser. I simply am uncapable to be selfish sometimes. Everything I do, I get scared I am behaving arrogant or someone would think of me as selfish.

Having talked to some people (aka some just message me on Instagram telling me how honest I seem, just wanting to talk to someone, which makes me really happy actually), I realise I am not the only one uncapable to say no. When I say not be able to say no, I mean uncapable to say no when a friend or family needs me to help. Uncapable to realise when I’m doing enough in life and need 5 minutes to myself and therefore saying No to seeing someone or helping someone out with something I might actually love doing. I hated thinking someone couldn’t count on me. I always wanted to have my shoulders ready for someone to lean on if they needed.

Obviously that’s not possible. In life, we get put in front of decision and realisations. We cannot always say yes. We cannot ALWAYS be there for EVERYONE. That’s not how we work. We need to be there for ourselves first.

I didn’t know that a couple of years ago. I felt judged by everyone. All the time. I felt like people wouldn’t invite me to things, because they didn’t like me as much. And I would never ever say no to someone to do something, otherwise even though I was busy, I would have FOMO.

FOMO, if you don’t know, is the fear of missing out. So either I couldn’t say no, because I hated to be judged and was put down as being unhelpful, uncaring or just not into a friendship, or I didn’t want to miss out on something or even just a simple night out with friends, that I couldn’t attend the whole night cause I had training the next morning at 9am and needed to be fit.

Other than that, I felt very misunderstood most of my life. People didn’t get that I just tried to have a conversation with them, cause I wanted to talk and socialise and that’s what humans do, we talk about things we are interested in, our hobbies and passions. I personally hate standing next to friends talking about something I know nothing about. It’s horrible. I just don’t like it. I feel left out although I’m in the circle.

A couple of years ago in university, it happened. Some of my best friends straight out told me, I need to be more selfish, cause I am too selfless. I should ask for what I wanted and should take time to myself and do the things I want. I needed to learn to live myself. It sounds quite weird hearing this from friends. I am forever grateful to them and love that they cared enough to tell me that I need to care more about myself. Being selfish is not negative.

Although I am writing this now, I still have to actually believe and accept that being selfish is not purely negative! We humans are so used to being in a society, where you are told to be sympathetic and help each other when you can, but where is the border? When is it enough? When do you need to be selfish to recharge your own batteries? I have learnt in the last year, that when it’s too late, you will know, but how can you realise it’s happening before you’re destroyed? I am not sure there’s a way of finding out.

But I do believe that taking a couple of minutes a day to do some mindfulness to center yourself, or do something you really like even if it’s lying in your bed, will help. You have to yourself, is the stress worth it to go through all the tears of helping others, when you can feel you are losing yourself a little. Take a step back and think of yourself first and most of all, remember that if people don’t get it, let them be. You are the most important person in your life and it has to stay that way in order to help others.

Hope this gave you a little brain thought and btw Call me Chrissi xx