Being True to Yourself: Is it Selfish?

One of the deciding moments in my life is when I met someone who told me that I should start living life the normal way. By normal, what she meant is trying my old job again, get better, get promoted, and live the days like the majority. However, at that same moment, I decided to stay true to myself and be selfish just this once. When I was told that by not choosing her way, she would leave me forever. It has been a few years since that happened and I can say that I have been enjoying my life ever since.

As a general rule, being true to yourself is not selfish. Being true to yourself is a sign of integrity where you respect your needs to make them a priority. However, there are times where prioritizing ourselves too much to the point of causing harm or pain to others can be considered selfish.

Thus, in my short story, you would see that at that moment, I decided to be selfish. Generally, I am not a selfish person. I check what others really feel and do things that are good for my environment. However, I have set my limits and what happened is that she crossed the line. That’s why this blog post will talk about this. We are going to talk about setting limits, why it is not a bad thing to be true to yourself, and the virtue of being true or honest with yourself.

Is being true to yourself selfish?

I still remember that time and it was pretty devastating. Imagine somebody leaving you just because you want to reach your goals.

Imagine how hard it is to choose between satisfying people around you or trying to just be yourself.

If you are reading this article, my guess is you already know how that feels and you might be starting to ask yourself if you are being too selfish to do so.

The truth is it is not selfish to be true to yourself. There are just times where people around, even the people who love you, will start doubting your abilities.

Our society has been trained to look for outliers. What I mean by outliers are people who don’t go with the norm.

In my example, reaching for my dreams to share things with the world is an outlier.

Who would really trust me to make my own website and earn a living by sharing? That is the same problem aspiring artists, singers, dancers, and YouTubers such as I face.

By the way, I create YouTube Videos about personal development. If you are interested in self-improvement such as productivity, creativity, lifestyle, and so much more, believe that you will enjoy my YouTube channel. You can find my Channel here: Youtube Channel

But take note that this is not their fault. We are wired to see outliers such as when looking at a clean sheet of paper, we would most likely look at the dot since it is the one different from most of the picture.

That’s why we always hear complaints that no matter how many times they do things correctly, people would only see their mistakes.

Or there are also people who always do mistakes that people will be surprised when they did something right.

That is because we are focused on the outliers. We are wired to do so.

Now that I have already explained why do people think of being true as selfish, let us now discuss if being true to yourself is really bad.

The truth is, being true to yourself is not inherently bad. It is just a sign that you are thinking for your own self and questioning the norm around you.

It is a sign of respecting your own values while comparing them to the ones around you.

This is a sign that you are courageous enough to think outside the box and you want to try something out yourself.

The problem is that a lot of people are repressing this and the fact that you are wondering about this makes you one of the few who want to challenge some norms.

Going against the norm is plain uncomfortable. That’s why you are now wondering if it is selfish but the truth is, you are just respecting your own values.

That is why it is perfectly fine to be yourself. A lot of great people became great because they changed the world. How did they change the world? They usually just saw something in the norm that needs fixing.

But, take note that everything that is too much is bad for us which includes being true and thinking only of ourselves. If it turns out that you are only thinking of yourself without thinking of your environment and others, then that is selfish.

However, just trying to think outside the box and serving humanity is never selfish.

Is it okay to be selfish for yourself?

It is okay to be selfish for yourself because it is good for your physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. That way, you will be better at processing and identifying your own thoughts without regard to someone else. That’s why being a little greedy can improve your overall well-being.

In the last section, I told you that being yourself is not selfish.

In fact, it is a sign that you are questioning things like a child who is starting to learn.

That’s why a lot of people who are being true to themselves are inherently smart because they question things around them and they are constantly learning through the years.

So, it is perfectly okay to be selfish for yourself. Proving that you set some limits.

In my introduction, I set my limit where if I am going to regret some things and I will not really harm people with my belief, I will stick by it.

Consider that the lower limit and you should also set that yourself.

But there is the upper limit. Too much of everything is bad. This includes being too selfish for yourself.

The perfect example of being too selfish is people who are destroying our planet just for the sake of profit. If your selfishness is bringing harm to a lot of people, then it is wise to start thinking.

But of course, not everything selfish is bad.

Let me give an example.

Let’s talk about a brief history of the Taxi since I think most of us are using it now.

Do you think that the taxi was one of the greatest inventions for comfort?

When the first taxi was invented by Gottlieb Daimler in 1897, there were lots of protests against the taxi.

The reason for this is that while this makes traveling far away easier and comfortable, the rickshaw pullers are against this because it hurts their source of living.

However, they became selfish enough to enforce change which brought up our common taxi.

As you can see, if they did not become outliers and pushed through the taxi, we might still be in the rickshaw pulling age that is slow and can’t bring you to faraway places.

That’s why it can be good to be sometimes selfish for yourself. There are just times that what you want is good for the people around you and they just don’t see it yet.

This includes my story where I fully decided to work for myself because I want to be in control of my life. Plus, I am not really harming anyone.

So the point is this.

It is perfectly fine to be selfish since it will break you free from your limiting beliefs. Furthermore, it is a sign that you want something bigger in your life. However, there are just times where you need self-control since too much of everything can be very bad.

What is it called when you stay true to yourself?

Staying true to yourself is called integrity or self-respect. It is being authentic and being true to yourself. This means living your life to whatever you see fit or living according to your own values. This also means owning everything in your life including your success and mistakes.

Now that we are near the end, let us discuss the virtue of being true to yourself.

Being true to yourself is called integrity. It is believing in your own abilities and weaknesses.

It is the belief that you have to believe in yourself. It is respecting your own likes and dislikes. It is respecting your strengths and weaknesses.

When you start being true to yourself, you start building your integrity.

The people who have integrity are the ones who are charismatic and confident.

Most great leaders have integrity and it should not only be applied to them.

You also have the right to have integrity and it starts with staying true to yourself.

If you want to build confidence, then I have a blog post you would enjoy. In there, I made an illustrative guide on how you can look confident. If you want a fast boost in confidence, then I am sure you will like that post. However, being confident inside is still the key to unshakeable confidence. Here is the link: How to Show Confident Body language