It is always ok to take time for yourself and do what you need to do; however, it is not ok to always act off of your needs and not consider others. It’s your life — you do whatever you’d like — but don’t put on blinders and forget to take a look around.

Of course, it is more than ok to do things for yourself like taking a mental health day from school or taking that new job opportunity. Things like these are examples of things that you need to do for yourself. They’re examples of things you need to do to work on you to be the best, happiest version of you without negatively impacting others.

On the other hand, taking some time for yourself and only focusing on you does not mean disregarding everyone else around you. Being selfish isn’t a bad thing if you don’t let it be. Being selfish becomes bad when you only do what’s best for you with blatant disregard with how your actions affect others. For example, you’re working in a group project and decide not to do any of the work because the others will do it and you will still get an A. That is being selfish in a bad way. In the group project instance, your selfish acts are impacting others negatively by making them do more work. 

So, when asking the question of whether or not it’s a bad thing to be selfish, always remember there are two kinds of selfish: good and bad. Bad selfish is when you are only looking at your personal benefits and forgetting what your actions do to others. Good selfish is doing whatever is necessary for your wellbeing while sparing others’ pain or distress as a result of your actions.

Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash