Dating : How Being More Selfish Can Make You Happier

Selfishness has been getting a lot of bad rap, and it’s rarely mentioned as a positive quality. However, being selfish and embracing the idea of looking out for yourself first has many blessings that must not be overlooked.

First, being selfish only deserves criticism, if it comes at the expense of someone else or if it gives you an unfair advantage of someone else. If by doing something out of self interest you don’t hurt anyone else, then there is no shame in that at all.

There are few areas in life where being selfish not only doesn’t make you a bad person, but is of critical importance to qualitatively improving your life:

Work, Time Management, and Your Love Life

It’s pretty safe to say that your boss is not going to come to you and tell you that you work too much, that you should cut your hours and focus more on your personal life, hobbies and personal interests, and your love life. You can be as dedicated to your work as you can, and you can act as selflessly as you can toward your management, making all kinds of sacrifices for your job, but in the end -you are likely to be on the losing side, if not career wise, in many other ways. The hard truth is that unless you wake up, take a long, hard look at your schedule and decide to make sure that you make the time to do the things you want with the people you want, no one else will do that for you.

Don’t Be Friends With Someone You Don’t Like

Being friends with someone, whose company you don’t enjoy out of some sense of duty or obligation, either because belong to the same religion or ethnicity or because you share common past, is a dead-end relationship. Friendship should be fun and should be enjoyable. You should be looking forward to seeing a friend, not to simply treat it something you just need to do and get it over with. This doesn’t mean that you break all communication with the good people you know but who you don’t have the best chemistry with, but it does mean that when it comes to your social life, you should focus your time and energy on the people, whose company makes your life better / more interesting.

Don’t Stay Where You Don’t Want To Be

If you don’t like that movie or a show you are watching, leave. If you don’t like that large party where you barely know anyone, and after a few attempts at socializing you are just not feeling it, leave if your departure is not going to offend anyone. Unless it’s important for you to be there to support your friends or significant other, you are not doing anyone else a favor by being there. Like they say -life is too short. There must be a better place for you to spend those few hours. Often, even Netflix and sleeping are as good or better options than forced activity or socializing that does nothing for you.

Don’t Eat What You Don’t Want To Eat

If the meal you ordered sucks, stop eating it. Just because you paid for it, doesn’t mean that you have to force yourself to eat something you don’t like. The money you paid is gone one way or another. Stuffing yourself with something you don’t like, isn’t going to make that meal investment any better, and it also isn’t going to make the poor children in Africa any less hungry. You do nothing good to anyone by eating something you don’t like or don’t want.

The above are just a few common examples of the simple things you can ad probably should do out of pure self interest to make your life better, while not hurting or harming anyone else.