Often enough people get labelled with either being selfish, selfless or loving their selves so much. And really nothing is ever good enough. I myself have been judged one too many times from being selfless to selfish, while all the while what I was really trying to figure out was self-love. I would be hurt and angry for having disappoint people with my behavior when it was not even personal. I could be so confused that I had to choose between the three, cause making choices on such short notice wasn’t my best quality. I’d like to take all the time I need to live in each and every possible circumstance and then decide or not even decide at all. But still I wanted to figure out this whole lining between selfless, selfish and self-love. Cause I couldn’t balance it out, I couldn’t decide which one to be.

From what I have figured out for myself is that being selfless means to put everybody first, except for myself. I could cater to others needs because mine just didn’t seem that much important, until my inner self was so disappointed and drowning for not getting my own attention, I collapsed and couldn’t care for anyone anymore. For having that happened I turned all the attention to myself, in my defense, to first take care of me so that I can help everyone else. But of course, this wasn’t taken lightly for I needed so much love for myself I might have overcome as selfish.

See now it felt like I had to choose between being either selfish or selfless, cause this halfway thing called self-love was being defined as I go. I’ve been pondering for months now and decided that I can choose. Depending on the circumstance I can choose to be either or neither and I’ve developed a simple tool for helping me choose:

• Be selfless to the helpless. Help the people when they really need the help you can really offer. Practice non-stealing, don’t help when they can do it themselves. You will steal their strengths and belief for not having them explore it.
• Love yourself first, then everybody else. In loving yourself, you have to know your truth, accept it and be kind to it. Only then you can truly love someone else for being their own true self, because you’ve already practiced on yourself. That is truthfulness in its purest form.
• Be selfish when it comes to your feelings. Feelings are gateways to your emotion, so be mindfully selfish about that and be that person who makes you feel that way. Choose to be selfish if you know that something will hurt you for the other person to be happy. Cause somebody else’s happiness is just too big a responsibility to carry if you are not.