I want to become more Selfish

[Guest EmptyVase]

@Preety_India

A selfish person who makes an effort to love him-/herself will soak up all the advice that is given to him/her, in order to become as selfish (=self-loving) as possible. Maximize selfishness, and your circle of concern will widen. You will not only see yourself as yourself, but your entire experience as a manifestation of yourself.

[Eph75]

3 minutes ago, 4201 said:

If I'm good at being selfish, then why would I give you good advice? After all I'm selfish, so you benefiting from my advice doesn't do anything to me. 

Not entirely so.

Of course, you could bullshit and mislead, perhaps unconsciously so, but the selfish drive/need still gets satisfied in form of self-affirmation and increased self-importance regardless as long as the one being helped find that help offered as helpful. 

6 minutes ago, 4201 said:

How do you know the advice you are receiving here is good?

Everyone must think for themselves, take advice as input and food for contemplation, own sense-making and fuel for experimentation so that you build understanding from own experience proving advice useful or not useful. 

9 minutes ago, 4201 said:

This is quite dangerous [...] Scary.

The path to "true happiness"* is scary for sure, and painful. If it doesn't hurt, that's probably not the right path. 

[Guest EmptyVase]

11 minutes ago, dflores321 said:

So Selfish, you see the whole thing is selfishness, Love is cool. 

Cool af. ??

[4201]

10 minutes ago, Eph75 said:

Not entirely so.

Of course, you could bullshit and mislead, perhaps unconsciously so, but the selfish drive/need still gets satisfied in form of self-affirmation and increased self-importance regardless as long as the one being helped find that help offered as helpful. 

Everyone must think for themselves, take advice as input and food for contemplation, own sense-making and fuel for experimentation so that you build understanding from own experience proving advice useful or not useful. 

The path to "true happiness"* is scary for sure, and painful. If it doesn't hurt, that's probably not the right path. 

I think the most selfish person doesn't listen to other people's opinion unless they need to know what they are thinking for the sake of manipulation.

Building a solid echo chamber should be a must. Getting forum members to delete their answers if they don't align with your opinion is a start, but there's still a risk for a pesky forum member to come in and expose you to statements to which you have nothing to say against. This is a serious threat to the selfishness mentality as it may lead to exposure to options that feels better than the imagined need for selfishness.

For instance the option of understanding may be provided as an alternative to selfishness. If one fully understands a situation, no selfishness is required to attain the result that feels the best. Thus understanding is very dangerous to selfishness and should be avoided at all costs. 

[SamC]

@Preety_India Notice how what you're trying to do, is the same thing as when a man who is a "nice guy" tries to swing the pendulum to the other side and become a mean selfish asshole.

You shouldn't try to be selfish, you should try to be more selfless and loving. You need to work to be more selfless with a capital S. 

Your selflessness right now is not selflessness, its selfishness. Raise your awareness, your self love and work on healing and parts work. That's counterintuitively how you will learn to set firmer boundaries and prioritize yourself more than others. You need to go full circle!

Right now you're prioritizing others becuase you're selfish and insecure + feel like you need to do that in order to get love. Notice that!

Edited July 27, 2021 by SamC

[mememe]

@Eph75 all systemic models after all are just models to figure out the internal conflict - where these distinctions then really come from and how they were established in us is a much more physical or direct experience than all models can provide. the path to more selfishness/selflessness is as you say more painful than easy and more full of trigger points than we sometimes want to admit. 

thanks for the contemplations earlier.

Edited July 27, 2021 by mememe

[asifarahim]

Unless a person is enlightened he is selfish.me ,you,leo and everyone is selfish

[Preety_India]

1 hour ago, SamC said:

@Preety_India Notice how what you're trying to do, is the same thing as when a man who is a "nice guy" tries to swing the pendulum to the other side and become a mean selfish asshole.

You shouldn't try to be selfish, you should try to be more selfless and loving. You need to work to be more selfless with a capital S. 

Your selflessness right now is not selflessness, its selfishness. Raise your awareness, your self love and work on healing and parts work. That's counterintuitively how you will learn to set firmer boundaries and prioritize yourself more than others. You need to go full circle!

Right now you're prioritizing others becuase you're selfish and insecure + feel like you need to do that in order to get love. Notice that!

I don't need lecture uncle Sam. 

I know what selflessness is. I'm working on selfishness. 

There is nothing wrong with trying to be more selfish.

[Jason Yoon]

I think the best way to be Selfish is to recognize that this virtue ultimately allow you to help others much more than if you were to be Selfless.

In order to solidify this into your mind, I would write a list of all the examples that proves this point.

I'll give you a few to start with:

- Rich people who are seemingly "more selfish" with money help poor people, way more than poor people help other poor people

- In an airplane, when they explain the smoke emergency drills, they ALWAYS tell you to put the mask on before putting on your child's mask

- (My favorite): The heart takes all of the best oxygenated blood for itself BEFORE it gives it to all of the other organs. If it weren't Selfish enough, it wouldn't have this powerful ability, and ultimately, all of the organs in the body would fail

Feel free to share some more examples if you come up with any. Counter-examples are always welcome too

[Jason Yoon]

Another drill I habitually run is extrapolating 2nd order consequences.

So when I'm about to choose between doing the selfish thing vs selfless thing, I run this drill.

Here is an example:

Let's say I'm about to start a 6 hour timeblock to work on my online business.

And I have to make a decision between turning off my phone (to concentrate better), or leaving my phone on (just incase someone calls me).

By default, I might want to leave my phone on to be more "selfless." But I know that I'm going to be distracted by doing so.

So at this point, I would run this exercise.

1st option: Turn my phone off -> work on my business productively for 6h with no distractions (but get mad remarks from friends & family for being "selfish") -> set myself up to make much more money -> become wealthy faster -> help my parents retire faster (and be known as a selfless person)

2nd option: Leave my phone on -> get distracted by friends and family (no one is angry but I barely moved my business forward) -> I become rich very slowly (or never at all) -> stay stuck in the rat race -> can't help anyone in my life financially (and keep them stuck in the rat race as well)

I run 2nd order consequences in my head to strengthen ANY virtue I want. It's not just limited to exercising your Selfishness.

You can also do this with being healthy too.

When you're trying to decide between eating a Big Mac vs salad:

1st option: eat a salad (and suffer temporarily) -> feel better & cleaner -> lose weight & think sharper -> make better choices

2nd option: eat a Big Mac -> feel shittier -> gain weight & have a big mental fog -> make poorer decisions

And so on!

Edit: I learned 2nd order consequences from a very bright entrepreneur named Sam Ovens. Here is the video explaining this concept (simple but very powerful):

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by Jason Yoon

[Preety_India]

1 minute ago, Jason Yoon said:

Another drill I habitually run is extrapolating 2nd order consequences.

So when I'm about to choose between doing the selfish thing vs selfless thing, I run this drill.

Here is an example:

Let's say I'm about to start a 6 hour timeblock to work on my online business.

And I have to make a decision between turning off my phone (to concentrate better), or leaving my phone on (just incase someone calls me).

By default, I might want to leave my phone on to be more "selfless." But I know that I'm going to be distracted by doing so.

So at this point, I would run this exercise.

1st option: Turn my phone off -> work on my business productively for 6h with no distractions (but get mad remarks from friends & family for being "selfish") -> set myself up to make much more money -> become wealthy faster -> help my parents retire faster (and be known as a selfless person)

2nd option: Leave my phone on -> get distracted by friends and family (no one is angry but I barely moved my business forward) -> I become rich very slowly (or never at all) -> stay stuck in the rat race -> can't help anyone in my life financially (and keep them stuck in the rat race as well)

I run 2nd order consequences in my head to strengthen ANY virtue I want. It's not just limited to exercising your Selfishness.

You can also do this with being healthy too.

When you're trying to decide between eating a Big Mac vs salad:

1st option: eat a salad (and suffer temporarily) -> feel better & cleaner -> lose weight & think sharper -> make better choices

2nd option: eat a Big Mac -> feel shittier -> gain weight & have a big mental fog -> make poorer decisions

And so on!

This is a good exercise.

 

[Jacob Morres]

5 hours ago, Jason Yoon said:

1st option: Turn my phone off -> work on my business productively for 6h with no distractions (but get mad remarks from friends & family for being "selfish") -> set myself up to make much more money -> become wealthy faster -> help my parents retire faster (and be known as a selfless person)

 

arent they being selfish for not supporting the grind for your dreams because *they want* to see you more 

calling someone selfish can sometimes be selfish - when it's proclaiming a judgement for not meeting a certain need of yours (which is your thing)

 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Jacob Morres

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, Myioko said:

Being selfish is pretty hard to define and I feel like there are many different flavors in being selfish, and I think it can do good to explore the different flavors of selfishness without actively lashing out or physically hurting others. Maybe because I feel like the word selfish is a pretty loaded word or a word that I’ve associated with a lot of fear/guilt/negativity in the past, but I like to think of the healthier aspects of ‘being super selfish’ as being more ‘self loving’ attitude. Figuring out and learning about selfishness vs selflessness is still a process that I’m going through because I was taught to be very ashamed at the idea of being a self centered person...but here are some things that I remind myself from time to time:

(oops sorry this ended up being long)

 

-If someone asks you to do an activity with them/help them, instead of the automatic ‘Yes I’ll help you’ or ‘Yes I need to help them’ thought, take a pause and think...do I actually want to do this? 

 

-Reduce guilt if you sometimes feel guilty or ‘wrong’ while spending time with yourself and being absorbed in your own interests. Express how you want, how you are feeling. Be as feminine as you want, or however you want to express yourself. Dress how you want. Be unapologetic towards the type of books, videos, topics you find interesting. If the thought ‘I feel guilty or embarrassed for being self absorbed’ repeatedly pops into your head, first off, tell yourself: Am I actively unnecessarily hurting someone else? (Chances are: No, I am not hurting someone else. So, a lot of the guilt is in my head.) Imagine throwing that guilt-thought on an imaginary leaf in a stream and letting that guilt float away. Then take a moment to pat yourself on the back for getting this far in life, for successfully waking up that day. Take a moment to love yourself, tell yourself that nothing is wrong with you and in the end, other people's opinions don’t matter as long as you love yourself. Over time more self confidence and a strong sense of self identity and healthy self focus can be built from there, I think. 

 

-If others tell you that you are wrong/selfish and it bothers you, or you don’t want that person to criticize you (or, you simply don’t feel ready to have a critique on your personality because your already trying to process other stuff, you can decide to not take that advice personally, to ignore it, or to use it as a tool to learn...take advice as you will, but you can ‘selfishly’ not take in advice) take days on ignoring advice and others opinions. Maybe take a few breaths and privately journal it out. Write about some points that you do feel confident about, that aligns with your intuition and inner compass, and try to remove yourself in that time from the people who are calling you selfish.

If a particular person in my life is repeatedly telling me that I am selfish, a bad person, or overly self centered, first: I would try to figure out whether or not their views are harming my mind and if their focus on me is for their own best interests or not...do they really care about me? Are they just stuck in their own world view and how they were raised/insecure/jealous/etc themselves? Next, I would try to clearly tell them what I don’t appreciate the things they are telling me are, tell them what my boundaries are, or remove myself from that person. Because if I don’t do that for myself, I would feel confused as to whether or not I was actually a bad person, and thinking that I’m a bad person is not a healthy or productive feeling for anyone.

 

-Cultivate and notice patterns in people who are trying to get stuff out of you. If you happen to be the type of person who naturally feels the urge to give, notice if that person you are giving to isn’t giving back. A healthy sense of giving imo is an even sense of back and forth giving. (This excludes pets and children because they aren’t independent, but even pets and children shouldn’t feel like a major obligation otherwise that can lead to care burnout or sometimes even resentment.) If the other person is in the habit of taking, taking, taking: CUT that person out of your life, or just walk away from them. It may feel cruel, but writing out some boundaries and practicing bringing out those boundaries bit by bit can slowly go towards improvement in living up to those boundaries. 

 

-Practical day to day life small improvements and success such as money or improving ‘x’ skills: Aim to make it feel sexy as hell. As an exciting, fun thing, in the energetic/internal sense. I often feel like I struggle to improve myself because it turns into this obligation...and feeling selfish. I have areas of repressed Stage Orange myself, because I used to really dislike many aspects of State Orange. Such as: thinking about material wealth and gain, becoming a successful person, gaining status and external like of any kind, doing great at school or jobs, time management, etc...it gave me a very meh feeling. It felt a bit like the world was pointing a gun at my head, smiling, saying ‘Get better at living life and like it OR ELSE.’ I find that romanticizing small improvement steps helps in reducing this hate/obligation feeling in needing to succeed in life...maybe romanticizing isn’t the right word, but finding fun and excitement in success. I think finding role models can help in this, people who talk with enthusiasm and authenticity about creating healthy habits and success in their life. Whether it be someone you know in your day to day life, or a youtuber. What are some ways to make success and planning for success feel more fulfilling and full of life? Oftentimes stage orange I feel is very masculine, but there are more feminine approaches towards success-mindset, I think. Or mixing stage orange with stage green. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on yourself and enjoying life's small material successes.

 

-Have hours or days where you follow your heart, interests and desires, and not try to ‘fix’ yourself. Like on this forum I’ve noticed that people are trying to fix fix fix themselves, and telling others how to fix themselves. And while the overall purpose of this forum is to try and self-actualize, the process of self actualization can be painful, is confusing, is too much thinking, is a lot of people telling other people what they think they need to do...so I think it can be good to take moments to not focus on becoming a better or different person, and simply attempt to live life through your feelings, heart and interests, and direct experience without over analyzing yourself. 

 

-Focus on positive self empowerment: Learn how to trust your own mind, or at least love it. Notice the things that are great about you, that make you a unique individual. Practice self care and practice self assertiveness. 

 

-Work on ego-building, self identity building, and getting back to the basics. What I mean by ego-building is not acting overly childish or impulsive, but on building yourself up and knowing who you are, without feeling the need to transcend the ego

You're a savior. 

This is how I was feeling. I always felt ashamed, guilty and demonized for spending time with myself.

 

[fopylo]

Hi, sorry I didn't really come here to give any advice, but I have a feeling you might be dealing with something I am also (I might be wrong) which is mental masturbation and having fun keeping this story of 'you being too selfless and trying to overcome it by being more selfish' alive.

You might be having fun engaging in this problem, but are you ready for if let's say now we all stop engaging here and also the problem is fixed?

Sure, people have great advice, but it might actually confuse more if you try to analyze and theories too much.

Again, sorry if I'm jumping too quick into conclusion. I might be projecting but just intuitively felt it might be the case.

Wish you the best

[Preety_India]

@fopylo I'm not having any fun. I'm a serious seeker.  Thanks

[Jason Yoon]

@Jacob Morres Couldn't agree more. Ironically, people who accuse others for being selfish are usually the most selfish people I know. I'm so glad I've separated myself from these people.

[Byun Sean]

Well I guess the first question to act yourself is what is blocking you from meeting your own needs in these situations right now?

 

The reason you can't act more 'selfish' is because you have a certain fear behind what will happen if you do. Only you can know/ figure out what that is.

 

 

There seems to be an underlying need you're meeting that is taking priority over meeting your other needs.

 

Your job is to introspect and figure out what that block/ fear is so you can consciously choose what needs to meet rather than unconsciously.

 

 

[SamC]

9 hours ago, Preety_India said:

I don't need lecture uncle Sam. 

I know what selflessness is. I'm working on selfishness. 

There is nothing wrong with trying to be 

1: Stop with the ruler techniques, I tried to help you.

2: You need to go full circle 

Edited July 28, 2021 by SamC

[Preety_India]

22 minutes ago, Byun Sean said:

Well I guess the first question to act yourself is what is blocking you from meeting your own needs in these situations right now?

 

The reason you can't act more 'selfish' is because you have a certain fear behind what will happen if you do. Only you can know/ figure out what that is.

 

 

There seems to be an underlying need you're meeting that is taking priority over meeting your other needs.

 

Your job is to introspect and figure out what that block/ fear is so you can consciously choose what needs to meet rather than unconsciously.

 

 

This was extremely insightful almost psychologically going deeper into my psyche. Great job at dissecting my thought. Even I can't do it. 

I really need to introspect on whatever you brought up.

Thanks for pointing me in that direction. I just wasn't aware. So your post really helped me notice that.

 

[Preety_India]

17 minutes ago, SamC said:

1: Stop with the ruler techniques, I tried to help you.

2: You need to go full circle 

 

 

  

Sticking fingers in my ears.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Preety_India