There is a thin line between self love and being selfish

There are people who interpret selfish as self love and vice versa. We need to understand what being selfish is and how it looks like. Selfish is lacking consideration for other people. It is concentrating on one’s advantage,pleasure and one’s own welfare in disregard of others. A selfish individual will do just anything to get what they want and they tend to use manipulation to get to where they want. One can also be termed as stingy and self centered. They want everything for themselves and don’t actually put other people’s needs,feelings and emotions into consideration. Most times,a selfish person makes themselves happy at the expense of other people’s happiness.

On the other hand,self love is a state of appreciation for oneself. It is taking care of your own needs and not always sacrificing your well being to please others. Self Love means not settling for less than you deserve,you prioritize yourself,take a break when you need to, trusting yourself,being true to you, talking to yourself nicely and forgiving yourself when you have made mistakes.

Self Love doesn’t mean being rude and doing whatever you like without thinking of how your actions will affect the people around you. It isn’t being obsessed with oneself and forgetting that other people exist. It is simply taking care of yourself,doing the things you enjoy doing,grooming nicely,believing in your abilities and appreciating who you are and what you are made of. It is after you have fallen fully in love with the soul under your skin that you can truly spread and give love to others. Self care means that you have fed your soul and mind to an extent that you can now pour into other people’s cups.

It is easy for us to make selfish decisions especially when the opportunity favours us and elevates us to a high level. There’s nobody who has not acted selfish at some point. For example,I have two brothers,our first born is older than me by two years so basically we grew up together. I would screw up or make mistakes and then pin it on my brother. He used to get beatings that were not meant for him simply because I chose to be selfish. For instance,there’s a day I lost sh 2000 that mum had given me to do shopping. I was so tensed coz I knew my mum would beat me for losing that amount. My brother had a habit of taking small small cash and he used to be caned alot. So that day I waited for mum to come home and told her that my brother is the one who took the 2K. My big brother couldn’t prove himself innocent as we all knew that he used to take mum’s money. It made me feel so guilty because my selfish action made him suffer some thorough punishment. I protected myself through sacrificing him. I did not consider his feelings/emotions.

Sometimes we can make decisions without involving our friends/family/partners yet whatever we decide on will affect them in one way or another. Let’s say you’ve always had a dream to study in another country. So one day an opportunity presents itself and you are offered a scholarship to go and study in that other country. Ofcourse you’ll be so excited and fill out the forms without thinking twice. How do you think your family/friends and partner will feel about it? Ofcourse they will be happy for you that finally your dream has come true. But will that be all? They will feel irrelevant to you. It’s like their opinions don’t matter to you. You don’t care about how they’ll be affected when you move to that other country. That is a very selfish action. A considerate person will first of all talk to their partners and let them know that they have been given the opportunity to school in a different country. There should be atleast a conversation before filling the forms. That way you can discuss on the pros and cons of you moving to that other country,how your relationship will be affected and the things you can do in order to stay connected. Your partner will feel valued and appreciated when you engage them before making huge decisions.

Thank you for reading through this piece. Let me know your thoughts.