Start asking that after you lose someone to someone else.
I never thought that “selfish” could be a positive word. Take it one syllable at a time and it will begin to dawn on you:
self-ish. Now, do you get it?
We have an unspoken philosophy that being selfish is a bad thing. We are brought up by our culture to be generous, thoughtful, and to always give. We are always told to expect nothing in return, to be selfless, to a point where we reach the extremes of those philosophies, when we start thinking only about others, and we stop thinking about ourselves.
But, come to think of it: the only bad thing about this is being “too selfish”. We can still be generous, thoughtful, and giving without forgetting ourselves, right?
Loving one’s self is vital. Loving someone is not an excuse to stop loving ourselves. ‘Cause how can we fully appreciate the things around us if we don’t appreciate ourselves? (Now, that is called envy.) And how can we convince other people that we deserve to be loved if we cannot convince ourselves of the same thing? (This one is called insecurity.) That’s why we can never be fully a part of any relationship without ourselves being whole, and being consistently whole at that.
Maybe most of us will think, “That’s ridiculous! Of course I love myself!” Well, think again. Because bliss and comfort easily strays us to a path where things are taken for granted. We just can’t help it. When all is positive, we tend to just believe that it will always be there without much effort. But life is not about fantasies. It is about the reality that we only reap what we sow.
However, the effort is quite simple: love oneself. We just have to be aware, and that is all.
