Break Free Tips

Popular morality tells us to become selfless by turning our backs on our own lives for the sake of other people's lives. This morality asks you to make three dangerous assumptions - assumptions that make it impossible to truly care for yourself:

Assumption 1 is that you exist for the sake of others.
Assumption 2 is that turning your back on yourself helps others.
Assumption 3 is that helping yourself hurts others.

In order to feel right about caring for yourself, you need to question each of these assumptions.

Response to Assumption 1: You do not exist for the sake of others - you exist for yourself.

There is nothing wrong with you helping others. But there is everything wrong with you helping others to the detriment of yourself.

It's time to stop turning your back on yourself. Just as a tree doesn't have to justify its life by living for other trees, you don't have to justify your life by living for other people. A tree's life is an end in itself. So is yours. Thriving as a mature, healthy, productive tree is the tree's purpose - whether it stands alone in a field or with a group of other trees in a forest. Likewise, thriving as a mature, healthy, productive human being is your purpose - whether you live alone or with other people.

Beware of any moral or ethical system that treats your life as a "throwaway" and other people's lives or "causes" as more important than your own. Such a morality is out to harness you - and to put the reins to your life in the hands of others. A morality that tells you to demolish your "self" by becoming "selfless" is not concerned with the well-being of anybody - because every single person is a "self."

Response to Assumption 2: Turning your back on yourself does not help others - it hurts others, as well as yourself.

What happens to you when you turn your back on yourself? You either become a burden to others (because your morality says you shouldn't be concerned for yourself) - or you become a "slave" to others (because your morality says you should forget yourself and live for others). In other words, either you become a parasite on others, or others become parasites on you.

Either way, you hurt others as well as yourself. Neither parasites nor slaves can live healthy, fulfilling, happy human lives. The only way to do that is to change from betraying yourself (being selfless) to being true to yourself (being selfish).

Being selfish means genuinely caring for yourself. It does not mean that you can't also genuinely care for others - it just means that you don't let yourself get so involved in caring for others that you forget to take care of yourself.

Being selfish is crucial to human survival, health and happiness. "Mother Nature" requires all her life forms to be selfish. Imagine a tree trying to live for another tree. It can't be done.

You must be selfish because you are the only one who can live your own life. You are the only one responsible for directing your life. You have to be concerned with your best interests and priorities in order to live a healthy, meaningful, happy human life.

An idea of goodness that tells you that it is wrong to be selfish is asking you to turn your back on your own survival and well-being. Instead of being a guide for living a healthy, fulfilling human life, your idea of goodness becomes a guide to self-abandonment and "wiping out" your self.

Response to Assumption 3: Helping yourself does not hurt others - it helps others.

It's time to stop confusing selfishness with brutishness. Being selfish means genuinely caring for yourself. Being brutish means hurting others. It is not good to hurt others - or yourself.

Just as breathing for yourself does not interfere with others being able to breathe for themselves, caring for yourself does not interfere with others being able to care for their "selfs." When you help yourself, you show respect for other people by not becoming a burden on them - and you show respect for yourself by not becoming other people's slave. Beware of any idea of goodness that tries to make your own "self" an enemy of - or a slave to - other people's "selfs." This creates a "dog-eat-dog way" of looking at relationships, and undermines healthy human relationships of mutual responsibility and respect.

And here's a bonus: By each of us doing what we know and love best, we end up helping each other as well as ourselves. Whether you're a grocer, teacher, doctor, artist, inventor, or waitress - or manufacturer of TV's, cell phones or computers - you are offering your fellow human beings products or services that help them. And they in turn reward you with their products, services, or money in payment. It is a win-win relationship of mutual respect and voluntary trade. The same applies to personal relationships. We earn each others' admiration and affection by the kind of person we each make of ourselves.

Contrary to popular opinion, true selfishness not only leads to a deep love for your own life, but also for the people and the things that make your life so worth living. The more selfish you allow yourself to be, the happier you will be with yourself and the more you will want to celebrate being alive with other people. You will be amazed at how much more benevolent you will feel and how much more generous you will be to others when you allow yourself to be generous and loving to yourself.

HERE'S HOW TO GET STARTED: