In support of selfishness (or as I like to think of it, your
real job of caring for yourself and growing into maturity):
"Of all the judgements that we pass in life, none is as
important as is the one we pass on ourselves, for that judgement touches the
very center of our existence. No significant aspect of our thinking,
motivation, feelings, or behavior is unaffected by our self-evaluation.
To honor the self is to be willing to think independently,
to live by our own mind, and to have the courage of our own perceptions and
judgements.
To honor the self is to be willing to know not only what we
think, but also what we feel, what we want, need, desire, suffer over, are
frightened or angered by - and to accept our right to experience such feelings.
The opposite of this attitude is denial, disowning, repression -
self-repudiation.
To honor the self is to preserve an attitude of
self-acceptance - which means to accept as what we are, without self-oppression
or self-castigation, without any pretence about the truth of our own being,
pretence aimed at deceiving either ourselves or anyone else.
To honor the self is to live authentically, to speak and act
from our innermost convictions and feelings.
To honor the self is to refuse to accept unearned guilt, and
to do our best to correct such guilt as we may have earned.
To honor the self is to be committed to our right to exist
which proceeds from the knowledge that our life does not belong to others and
that we are not here on earth to live up to someone else's expectations.
To honor the self is to be in love with our own life, in
love with our possibilities for growth and for experiencing our distinctly
human potentialities.
Thus we can begin to see that to honor the self is to
practise selfishness in the highest, noblest, and least understood sense of the
word. And this requires enormous independence, courage, and integrity." ~ Nathaniel Branden, Honoring The Self
