What other people call “selfish” may be exactly what you need to do to be fair to yourself.
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A while ago, I was catching up with a friend who’s known me since I was 21. We talked about actions, choices, and the paths we commit to as adults. Eventually, it prompted me to consider how sometimes we think we deserve less than the best because we’re taught to measure happiness by accomplishments and effort.
Society has conditioned us to believe that the more you hustle, the more you’ll have. On a smaller scale, though, success and its fruits are a result of deliberation and self-preservation. You have to choose you over everything else.
Protecting your space — both physically and emotionally — has shown how much room in our lives we allow others to steal. Whether it’s out of obligation or necessity, we let things and people stand in the way of our happiness.
Through bad relationships and situations that were toxic, in retrospect I understand that we can be our own barriers to happiness by giving too much of ourselves to the wrong people.
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Often, it’s because the idea of doing it alone and still failing is far more frightening than doing it alone and having no one there to celebrate with. Through bad relationships and situations that were toxic, in retrospect I understand that we can be our own barriers to happiness by giving too much of ourselves to the wrong people.
I won’t pretend to preach about what you should do to live your best life or whatever. Although, there are certain things I’ve done that have moved me closer to being a happier, more emotionally mature man:
- Don’t worry about impressing people. You don’t have to be better than the next man to be good enough. I’m me. If that’s not good enough for the people I meet on this present path, then those people aren’t meant to be in my life. Simple as that.
- Stop being so available. It’s exhausting being a source of strength for others. Men place pressure on themselves to wear multiple hats. We dismiss human nature to feel and be anything beyond what society says men are, thus neglecting our own mental health. My way of being shielding from the uneven balance of interactions is to just cut peoples’ access to me off.
- Anxiety doesn’t have to paralyze you. It took a long time to be comfortable talking about my anxiety and depression. I tried everything to get it under control but eventually the walls closed in on me. I discovered that my anxiety had everything to do with how I coped. Once I knew what my triggers were, I (along with medication) learned to pause in the moment and stay away from the “worst case scenario” part of my brain. Whatever your mental illness is, it doesn’t have to hold you hostage.
- Be aware of your conversation. Just as you can talk up good things you can also talk up bad things. Putting negative hypothetical situations on your mind helps no one. Choose to operate with the knowns and the facts.
- Being thankful for where you are. We’re always so busy trying to move on to the next thing. Sometimes, the smallest act of selfishness is appreciating how far you’ve come or celebrating what you’ve been able to do up to this very moment. Be consumed by what’s happening in front of you.
Men tend to sacrifice a lot in the name of success. We spend years unhappy because we don’t want to disappoint our loved ones. Or we’re trapped living in the shadows and don’t know how to step out on our own. The day you decide to be selfish about your life, you’ll learn the ways that you’d been short-changing yourself out of fear. It’s a great and powerful moment of clarity to experience because once you believe you deserve better, the universe will create shifts to make it happen.
Being selfish is hard. People make you feel bad about putting yourself first. Selfishness in men is generally condemned as a bad trait. But it can be a good thing when it comes to success and happiness. When you devote the time you have in this life to your finished product, it’s pretty amazing how much of a better man you can be.
Also by James Woodruff
How Therapy Made Me a Better Man | 3 Steps to Rebuilding Trust After One Partner Cheats |
5 Ways You Sabotage Your Relationships Without Even Realizing It |
A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
Photo: Pixabay
Agree. Excellent essay. For the first time in modern society the average man is breaking free to seek his own path, make his own way, released from expectation of others. It is up to us all to seize the moment, and that starts with deciding what is best for us on an individual basis.
Get ours, then give back, not the other way around.
So excellent, James. The perfect message. It affirmed the article I’m publishing tomorrow with a very similar message.
Thanks for all you do!