A Dose of Selfishness: Doctor's Orders

I stared at the weekend engagement topics for a while and didn’t know what to pick. I realized that the topic I could most likely have talked about had been talked about already by a good number of people. And so I decided to challenge myself with a sensitive topic. Selfishness.

The idea behind selfishness according to me is laced with a lot of hypocrisy, mainly because most people view themselves and would like others to view them as the true embodiment of selflessness. There’s a reality check to that, however. While some people may have selfishness as a perpetual habit, meaning that, far be it from them to be remotely affiliated with giving or generosity of any kind, we’ve all been guilty of selfishness at one point or another in our lives.

But we may not want to view it as selfishness. Some would prefer looking out for myself or acting in my best interest. But that is all okay because selfishness in itself is not a bad thing when it’s not a habit.

There are several times that it’s necessary to be a little selfish when it’s not backed up by any form of maliciousness or spite. There are times you may just have to say “I’ve done so much already. I deserve to be a little selfish and look after myself this once.”

I don’t see the occasional selfishness as such a terrible thing because we just have to be like that a few times to maintain our sanity. I remember how much we looked forward to our dad’s contracts. Dad is a security systems engineer and so contracts meant big money. Contacts meant fun-filled days. Contracts meant happy home.

And so, as soon as Dad got the cheques, he didn’t need to announce it to us. The fridge was filled. Mum would suddenly take a trip outside the state to buy clothes and shoes and all of that and when she’d return, there would be things mostly for us and herself but somehow, Dad didn’t get many things but he would always smile and say “if my princesses are happy, then I am.”

To be honest, even with the things we got for him, he would say that there wasn’t a need and that the money could have been used to buy more things for us. So it was kind of a habit. From the moment the profits of the contract come to the time, it was exhausted, Dad would spend everything on one family need or the other and rarely buy a kerchief for himself. I didn’t like it and told him so but he did it anyway.

Then one day, we woke up and didn’t see him at home and we wondered where he’d gone to. We found a note in the living room from him that said he went to pick up a few things and would be back a little late. We beamed. We knew what that meant. More gifts for us. And so, we relaxed and waited excitedly for Dad’s horn.

Dad got back around eight that day with a big grin on his face and several bags. We greeted him and rushed to get the bags from him. We opened the first bag and saw shirts, different packs of shirts. Our smiles were still placed as we opened the next ones and saw denims. Big denims. For men. Our smiles turned into grimaces as we opened more and more bags and saw more and more of Dad things.

We got confused and asked why he didn’t get anything for us. Dad said that it wasn’t all and he’d even gone to a spa. And that’s when we really looked at him and saw how fresh he looked. “But what about us?” We whined. We were more surprised than annoyed because Dad had never not gotten anything for us before.

That’s when Mum came down and said that Dad had been getting things for us and it was okay for him to be a little selfish and get things for himself. We were still surprised but we understood.

I think being a little selfish sometimes makes no room for resentment. When we give without thinking about ourselves even once, we’d wake up one day to resent ourselves and everyone we ever gave anything to because we would feel empty.

With that said, I recommend a teensy weensy bit of selfishness from time to time. Stop making continuous sacrifices that would leave you bitter in the long run. Indulge yourself a little bit. You’ll be surprised how good you’ll feel afterwards.

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_{All images are mine.}

This is my response to the Weekend Engagement Topic: Selfishness by @galenkp

Do have a most indulgent weekend.❤️