Don’t Be Selfish 
Life is short. Reclaim the word.
In the last few years, I’ve made it my mission to destigmatize selfishness. I know, lofty goal, but somebody has to do it.
In The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck, I wrote about being selfish in terms of getting rid of stuff you don’t want—not just objects, but also obligations, relationships, events, and anything in life that annoys you. Why spend time you don’t have with people you don’t like, doing things you don’t want to do? You can make a big dent in all that crap with mental decluttering—selfishly setting boundaries and saying no so that you can focus instead on what brings you joy.
Get Your Shit Together included a whole section on the selfish pursuit of “me time,” which I suggested scheduling the same way you would any necessary appointment—because if you don’t set aside time for a bubble bath or a round of golf, who will? Your boss is busy assigning you tasks, your friends are busy sending you Evites, and your kid is busy refusing to take the very naps that you would murder a hobo for right now. You need that me time to recharge your batteries so you can DO all those tasks, ENJOY all those parties, and NOT MURDER YOUR CHILDREN OR ANY HOBOS.
So here in You Do You, I’m tripling down.
I shall begin my all-out assault on the social contract with the rule that informs all the other rules, and one that, I’m certain, you’ve been expressly taught not to break. Why? Because as far as I’m concerned, selfishness is a perfectly healthy quality, and under the right circumstances (hint: lots of them), “Be selfish!” is even better advice.
If you’ve been a good boy or girl your whole life, embracing this idea might feel not only weird, but wrong. I hear ya. Like, literally. Because despite the many positive conversations my books have engendered around cultural taboos like skipping baby showers and hating on Iceland—I still get radio show hosts, podcasters, and random strangers slipping into my DMs telling me that being selfish is the one thing with which they just can’t get on board.
The resistance is strong in this one.
I understand. “Don’t be selfish” has been drilled into us since we were kids hanging out in the communal sandbox, where “selfishness” meant hurting others, or only helping ourselves at others’ expense.
Our parents told us not to be selfish with our toys. Other kids’ parents told our parents to tell us not to be selfish with our toys. And if we acted selfish anyway, we got scolded. We also may have gotten bonked in the face with the Nerf water gun we were trying to yank back from the kid who thought it was okay to “share” our brand-new birthday present before we had a chance to break it our damn selves.
We were taught that sharing was caring, and, conversely, that not sharing was not caring—that if we didn’t give of our toys, freely and without restriction, we were being “bad.” And this is a good, simple lesson for youngsters who are just getting familiar with the social contract, but it shouldn’t obligate us to give of OURSELVES without restriction, always and forever.
We’re adults now. We understand nuance. And if you try to go through the sandbox of life being completely selfless and never selfish, you’ll wind up buried up to your neck with zero toys, watching other kids have all the fun. (Which, I might add, leaves you wide open for a bonking.)
So with all due respect to the people who raised us, it’s high time to move this particular line in the sand. I intend to do it with sound logic, shrewd reasoning, and a little help from Vanilla Ice.
You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself
Ricky Nelson sang it all the way to the Top 40 back in 1972 and GIRL WAS NOT WRONG. You will never be able to please everyone. There will always be someone who thinks you should go to parties you don’t want to attend, spend eighteen years raising (not to mention thirteen hours squeezing out) a descendant you don’t want, or share your Pizza Hut personal pan pizza just because your friend foolishly experimented with the Tuscani® Chicken Alfredo Pasta and now regrets her life choices.
When this version of Judgy McJudgerson pops up on your radar and says “Don’t be so selfish,” he’s really saying:
“Don’t turn down an invite to your buddy’s out-of-state Sigma Chi reunion just because you have a better use for the five hundred dollars you’d have to spend on airfare and hotel.”
“Don’t deprive the planet of an eight billionth person just because you don’t feel like nurturing it (or having your vagina/abdomen torn asunder).”
“Don’t eat the dinner you were excited about just because Diana insists on ‘trying new things.’”
And he MIGHT AS WELL be saying:
“Don’t be so happy.”
In all of these cases, you’ve established what you want others to do unto you—that is, let you manage your money and your reproductive system the way you like, and enjoy your meal free from vultures. And presumably you’d be willing to do the same unto them, because you’re not so fucking judgy. You’re not the one in violation of the Golden Rule here.
What does Judgy McJudgerson have against you being happy? Well, maybe his version of happiness doesn’t match up with yours. Maybe he’s not happy and he wants some company. (Misery loves it, you know.) Maybe Judgy does not get as aroused by a personal pan pizza as you do. Who knows? But as long as you’re not being an asshole, an insufferable prick, or a psychopath, who cares?
Knowing, asking for, pursuing, and preserving what makes you happy may be selfish. But it’s also smart.
The fact is, Judgy McJudgerson and the Selfish Police are going to get on your case no matter what. It’s just who they are—we all grew up in the same sandbox, and they haven’t grown out of it. But while they’re busy patrolling the perimeter, you’re busy reading this book and getting on with your life.
Ricky Nelson was right. You can’t please everyone, so why not start by pleasing yourself?
Oh, and if I were you, I’d get started on that today, because the thing about pleasing yourself is, you never know how much longer you might have to do it.
Everybody dies
I’m guessing my editor read the title of this section and reflexively reached for his iPhone to email me about “starting Part II on a lighter note,” but listen, Mike, Ricky Nelson’s private plane didn’t go down in flames on New Year’s Eve 1985 so that we could all be squeamish about mortality. Bear with me for a sec—I’m gearing up to make one of those excellent points you’re so fond of.
Death is the great equalizer. It happens to all of us and there are no do-overs.* To my mind, that means every hour should be spent “living life to its fullest” and “seizing the day” and other goals that belong on cheesy motivational posters, not in a cheekily profane book of unconventional wisdom.
My version of that poster would look like this:
Listen, I know it’s morbid, but with so many possibilities, choices, and outcomes, not to mention other people’s opinions to deal with—and only one chance to navigate them, which might last another fifty years or only another five minutes—thinking about death helps me focus my energy on living the best life I can.
I was six years old the first time someone I knew died. She was five—my cousin Emily, who had been born with cystic fibrosis. Although she spent much of her short life in the hospital, she was cheerful and giggly in the face of her incurable disease. Seeing her coffin at the front of the church as her father, my uncle Bob, delivered her eulogy, is one of my earliest memories.
In December of 2016, Bob died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-seven. This time it was me delivering a eulogy.
The intervening thirty years have been marked by funerals for grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and friends. A couple of months ago, I found out via Facebook that my first boyfriend had died suddenly at forty-four. So many of my peers have already said goodbye to their parents, and some have suffered the untimely loss of siblings, spouses, and even children.
So whenever I’m wrestling with asking for what I want or saying no to something I don’t, I remind myself that unlike many people I’ve known and loved, I’m lucky to have a choice in the matter, and that I ought to use it wisely.
Death is tragic and devastating, but at least the person who’s dying gets relief when the lights go out and the last synapse fires. Peace out. Game over. No time left on the clock for regrets. Whereas those of us left behind have all kinds of time to tangle with the encroaching hordes of fear and regret and what-ifs triggered by a brush with someone else’s death.
Or maybe, like Emily and Uncle Bob, we don’t have much time at all.
Do you see where I’m going with this? If your starring role on earth is a limited run—and I hate to break it to you, but it surely is—why impose limits on the happiness you can have while you’re still here?
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Okay, enough morbidity. (But thanks for indulging me, Mike. You’re a mensch!) It’s time to talk semantics—because every contract has a loophole, and far be it from me not to find and exploit it on my readers’ behalf.
So riddle me this:
The fine folks at Merriam-Webster insist that being selfish means being “concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself” and “without regard for others.” Well, sure, if we take this definition at face value, then I see why many people are not yet convinced that being selfish is ever okay. It sounds pretty bad—on par with “smells like Roquefort” or “kicks puppies” in terms of Stuff You Don’t Want People Saying About You. Definitely in or close to psychopath territory, which is no good. You know how I feel about psychopaths.
But despite what “people” who write “dictionaries” would have you believe, when it comes to selfishness, there is a whole MOTHERFUCKING GAMUT between good and bad.
It encompasses “taking care of your own needs first and then having plenty of regard for others” as well as “taking care of yourself when it has absolutely zero impact, positive or negative, on anyone else at all.”
| GOOD SELFISH | BAD SELFISH |
| Making sure you get 8 hours of sleep so you can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for your family | Falling asleep on the couch and expecting your family to tiptoe around you for eight hours |
| Handling the group cupcake order—to be nice, and so you know you’ll get what you want | Ordering six dozen of your favorite flavor and no one else’s |
| Waking up early to get the best lounge chair at your hotel pool | Leaving your towel draped across three chairs and going back to bed for two hours |
| Putting on your oxygen mask before helping others | Bogarting someone else’s oxygen mask |
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Being selfish is not always a bad thing. This shouldn’t be so controversial.
Being concerned about yourself doesn’t exclude you from ALSO being generous, caring, attentive, and empathetic toward others. It might even be what ENABLES you to be those things. (Remember what happened when I selfishly skipped all those marketing meetings to catch up on my beauty sleep? I tell ya what, I was a goddamn peach to be around for the rest of the day.)
The good kind of selfish is simply self-care—a concept that’s been fueling billion-dollar industries, selling magazines, and giving Gwyneth Paltrow something to do for many years. They’ve figured it out; why shouldn’t you?
And sometimes you even need to be selfish in order to help other people—like when you put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others. We’re no good to one another passed out from O2 deprivation, and that’s an FAA-mandated FACT.
Judgy can call me selfish all he wants, but I know I’m doing it while also having regard for others. I may be turning down birthday party invites because I’m “excessively concerned” with budgeting my time, but that’s in the service of finishing this book and helping YOU feel good about doing the same.*
At the end of the day, I have absolutely no problem (a) being excessively concerned with my own self-interest and (b) admitting it.
You can be selfish and feel good about it too, if you put your mind to it. Here are three tips to get you started:
I’m sure there are parents who would describe themselves as “morning people,” and for whom having an extra hour to themselves later in the day—before the kids get home from school—is when they feel most #blessed. If you, a non-Morning Person, feel shamed by the Selfish Police into volunteering for the a.m. car pool slot, you’ve not only deprived yourself of an hour of sleep, you’ve actually done a disservice to Morning Person Parent, who is now stuck with the 3 p.m. run—aka just about the time his or her breakfast power smoothie has worn off. This is what we call a “lose-lose.” You need to find the yin to your yang and then JOIN FORCES! Guilt-free afternoon pickups for you, and those inveterate early birds can take first shift to gain some freedom later in the day. (And Judgy can snack on it.)
Tradition is the enemy of selfishness, because tradition allows generations past to make decisions on your behalf. You don’t even get a say in it, let alone the chance to be “concerned excessively” with yourself. You just have to show up at a Dirty Dancing-esque cabin in the woods for a week every July because that’s how your parents did it, and their parents before them. Well, now you’re an adult with a burgeoning gnocchi habit and a preference for the Amalfi coast over the Catskills, so perhaps it’s time to start your own tradition that other people can be annoyed by. This is what we call “quid pro quo.” But you’re not a monster, remember? So while you’re creating your new tradition of Spending My Time Off as I See Fit, you could involve your family in it by adding a tradition of Bringing Back an Alcoholic Souvenir to Improve Relations at Christmas.
I’m a huge fan of the can’t-make-it-but-send-a-gift school of RSVP’ing, which accomplishes two things at once: I don’t have to do something I don’t want to do, and the host gets a bottle of nice champagne or a set of superhero onesies or a box of frozen Williams-Sonoma croissants, which are THE BEST. So yeah, maybe I couldn’t be at your retirement party, but you didn’t have to shell out $49.99 for my three-course dinner at the Elks’ Lodge and you got a Wooly Bugger, a Stimulator, and a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear out of the deal.* I also tend to be more generous when I can’t make it to an event than if I were spending the time/energy/money to go, plus bringing a gift. Somebody’s nephews and nieces are gonna do real well on the bar and bat mitzvah checks.
Honestly, there are so many more good reasons to embrace selfishness, I wish I could experience the profound joy of doing it for the first time. I’m jealous, you guys. Have fun.
Selflessness: the mother of all myths
Finally, since we’re on this topic, and since this is what anti-gurus are for, I’m going to expose some gray area when it comes to being selfless, too, which our friends at Merriam-Webster define as “having no concern for self.”
No concern. None. Zip, zilch, nada.
I ask you, does that sound sustainable? Maybe if your name is Mother Teresa, but do you really want her life? (If you really want her life, you are reading the wrong book.)
And anyway, it’s entirely possible to do and be good in the world without committing your entire existence to the self-defeating—and often self-harming—concept of having no concern whatsoever for yourself.
Take a different mother, for example: mine. If you knew Sandi, you’d probably think of her when the word “selfless” gets bandied about. Need a ride? She’ll be there in a jiff. Hungry? Tuna sandwich, coming right up. Does your core temperature run ridiculously hot, to the point that you require air conditioning in December? No worries, she’ll go put on a third sweater.
Is my mom selfless? Yep! Mostly.
But even while displaying more than her share of concern for others, she’s still looking out for her own self-interest on a daily basis. She sleeps in when she could theoretically be making somebody breakfast. Communes with Jack Reacher—rugged assassin and star of Lee Child’s globally bestselling thriller franchise—when my dad is right there on the couch next to her and could easily be engaged in conversation. Refuses to go easy on me in Words with Friends when she knows how much her only daughter, her firstborn, the flesh of her flesh, hates losing at that infernally addictive game.
“No concern for self,” my ass, Mother.
The point is, those pockets of selfishness—aka self-care—don’t negate her otherwise selfless behavior. She needs a little recharging if she’s going to keep up with all those good deeds and tuna sandwiches she’s so famous for.
By the same token, my usual focus on surrounding myself with peace and quiet doesn’t mean I would never babysit for a friend in need. (I’ll have you know, I’ve done that twice.)
Purely selfish people? Monsters, one and all. But purely selfless people don’t have it so good either.
Sure, they might win a Nobel Peace Prize every once in a while, but they also wind up bankrolling their adult children, going to prison for their bosses’ transgressions, and being eaten first by fellow shipwreck survivors. They are the reason they can’t have nice things.
Why not come hang out in the motherfucking gamut with Sandi and me? It’s quite lovely this time of year.
I learned it by watching Vanilla Ice
The preceding arguments in favor of selfishness may take some getting used to. You have to let go of a lifetime of conditioning and also be willing to take my word against the dictionary. I believe you can do it. But if you’re struggling with accepting selfishness as a good, useful quality and/or deploying it with confidence, I want to leave you with a little something extra to sustain you in your darkest hours.
Unfortunately I’m not [yet] authorized to go around making up words that get officially adopted by the entire English-speaking world. My agent is working on it. But for the purposes of closing this semantic loophole I’ve been fondling for the last few pages, allow me to at least offer you a new spin on an old one.
It involves a tiny tweak, similar to how one Robert Matthew “Vanilla Ice” Van Winkle tweaked Queen and David Bowie’s number one hit “Under Pressure” to create “Ice Ice Baby.”* My solution, like Vanilla Ice’s, makes life easier on all of us. Nobody has to learn a whole new word (or bassline); instead, we can just put the emphasis on a different syllable and go on about our day.
It’s like this: If you’re tired of Judgy McJudgerson calling you selfish when you act in a way that benefits you WHILE looking out for others (or that doesn’t adversely impact others at all)—just tell him it’s actually pronounced self-ISH, and you sure are, loud and proud, thank you very much!
In other words, and per the examples here:
If it’s self-ISH to let other moms volunteer for morning car pool duty because you don’t function well before 8 a.m.—but you take the afternoon run off their hands so they can get their Ellen on—then so be it.
If it’s self-ISH to use your summer vacation days on a solo trip to Italy instead of upholding a tired family Fourth of July tradition—but you show up on Christmas with bottles of duty-free grappa for everyone—then so be it.
If it’s self-ISH to turn down a party invitation because you don’t want to go out or you’re too busy with other things—but you send a nice gift to honor the occasion—then so be it.
And if being self-ISH results in you being a happier, calmer, more generous individual—then so be it.
Checkmate, Merriam-Webster.
Third time’s the charm
To recap: In The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck, I focused on learning how to give fewer, better fucks by saying no—an act that is frequently perceived as selfish when “no” is not the answer the person on the other end wants to hear. And sure, if you say it in a jerky or poorly thought-out way, it can qualify as “bad.” That’s why you use the NotSorry Method. Honest and polite. Prioritize your needs, but don’t be an asshole about it.
See, you’re taking their feelings into consideration! Not entirely selfish.
In Get Your Shit Together, I pressed the issue yet further, explaining how to—yes, selfishly—strategize your time and focus your energy to maximize what you get out of the fucks you do still give (including the all-important “me time” fucks).
The by-product of getting your own life under control is that you BECOME a more present, able, kind, and happy person for everyone else.
Again, since it benefits others, it’s not purely selfish after all.
Here in You Do You, I pulled out the big guns: death and wordplay. You want to accidentally fall through a manhole tomorrow and break your neck without having eaten that corner brownie piece? I thought not. And okay, fine, it’s bad to be selfish (pronounced SELF-ish). STOP COMING AT ME, BRO.
Being self-ISH, on the other hand… well, I think I’ve made a pretty compelling case. And they’re homonyms, so nobody has to work too hard. You’re welcome.
I do hope this finally closes the book on the whole selfish conversation, because I have other things to write about and other controversial ideas to disseminate. (If you’re reading this and you have a radio show, just wait until you get to my thoughts on “putting family first” in Part IV.)
For now, onward, to the perils of being perfect!