How To Be Selfish
In general, humans primarily function off of self-interest.
This sounds like a sad thought to bear that even in the purist appearing of people, self-interest can still remain.
But perhaps it's not entirely a bad thing.
Perhaps we can use selfishness to achieve selfLESSness.
On commercial airplanes, in the case of and oxygen shortage, adults are instructed to put oxygen masks on themselves before they assist children or other incapable passengers.
Arguably, this could be considered selfish, but its purpose is selfLESS.
It is logical.
An individual cannot help anyone breathe if they are unable to breathe themselves.
Likewise, one cannot give something to the world if they do not have it themselves.
An unhappy person cannot help the world be happy and a person without love cannot give the world love.
In life, a person must work to satisfy their own needs, even if they may initially appear selfish.
Needs like survival, self-love, self-awareness, self-fulfillment, and so on.
If our selfish acts are calculated and purposeful towards providing us with the capacity to carry out the needs of others, we move through selfishness and into selflessness.
The problem with this process is how easy it is to become swept away by our self-interest and forget about the purpose of using it to achieve selflessness.
We are seductive to ourselves and easily become addicted to creating a world around our ego.
We must resist, though, and maintain a balance between our self and the rest of the world.
Well-being is rooted in altruism.
It cannot merely be self-oriented.
Just like an investor invests portions of the money into a business, you must invest portions of yourself into others and trust that your quality of life will accrue in value.
And when it does, you will ironically end up with what your selfishness wanted the whole time; a better life.
But at least in this case, you will have positively affected others along the way and will have shared in a collective happiness that is enduring and wondrous.