What It Actually Means When Someone Says You're Selfish

How to start being unapologetically yourself.

If you are the type of person who follows the path less taken, chances are you’ve been criticized for it at some point in your life. People who are particularly individualistic, like creatives and other types of seekers, are vulnerable targets for condemnation because they challenge the status quo. Our culture professes to value independent, creative thinking…as long as you still play along. Some of us don’t want to play along – in fact, we may want to leave the room altogether. This isn’t a matter of inclination; it’s about the survival of our spirit. But living a wholehearted life in which you are fully yourself comes with a cost. Other people may not like it. I’ve been called selfish, lazy, pretentious, and arrogant for traveling my own path. Here I’ll focus on the first of these, as “selfish” is probably the most common judgement aimed at nonconformists, and it’s one we often hear from our own inner judge (you can find some of my views on laziness in this post). Let me start by asking you a question: if you are selfish, so what?

I’m quoting Madonna here. “So what!” was her response when nude photos of her were discovered in 1985. I was under ten at the time, but I still remember seeing that phrase on the cover of a news magazine in Waldenbooks (remember those?). It stopped me in my tracks; admiration overwhelmed me. Even at that young age, I could see that these were magic words, capable of turning criticism to dust. But I understood something else at an instinctive level that took me decades to be able to articulate. Whoever found the photos was hoping to use them to diminish Madonna, and she refused their agenda. But the way that she did this wasn’t to deny the ugliness they were launching at her. It was to embrace it as a positive. The power of this approach is like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the great wizard is revealed to be nothing but a pitiful little man hiding behind a curtain.

I could run through all the reasons you’re not actually selfish for pursuing a life path that isn’t what’s expected and condoned, give you advice about putting your own air mask on first and the importance of self-care. But doling out the standard prescriptions is not what I do here on this blog. My purpose is to help you upend the internalized beliefs we have all been socialized into accepting about what it means to be a good person living the right way. I want to help you not only live life on your own terms, but feel good about it. Here I’ll tell you what it actually means when you are criticized for being selfish, so that you can get to a place where you can say “so what” and mean it.

When someone says you’re selfish, the most powerful weapon in your arsenal is this question: what is their agenda? There is only one answer. The commonly accepted definition of selfish is that you are acting to meet your own needs over those of others. Whoever is condemning you isn’t much concerned with the first part – it’s the second, italicized, part that matters to them. So the answer to the question is this: their agenda is to get you to meet their needs. It really is that simple. What selfish actually means in such exchanges isn’t that you are acting to please yourself over others. It means that this person has needs that aren’t being met and is trying to get you to do that work for them.

But what about when the criticism is coming from within ourselves? Our inner judge is often our worst critic. Women especially are socialized to serve and are primed to feel guilty for not meeting other people’s needs. This inner judge is the one who makes you think, “Maybe I am selfish” even when you reject the external critics who said so – or when no one has actually said it at all. Our inner judge is very difficult to argue with or disregard because it operates from a position of cultural authority, our internalized values about how we should or should not behave. It speaks directly to our sense of ourselves as (un)worthy human beings. The question you ask it is the same, though: what is its agenda? But we need to understand who this inner judge is before we interrogate it.

This inner judge is not you, nor did you create it. It is not the same thing as your inner critic, who speaks with the voice of your insecurities. Your inner judge is a disciplining voice that is comprised of all the lessons you’ve absorbed from external disciplining voices – your family, teachers, peers, media – and its job is to ensure you are doing your part to uphold the cultural structures that enable society to function and endure. It does this by making sure that whatever you choose to do with your life, your primary (often subconscious) actions are for the good of your group. This is primal stuff with roots in evolutionary advantage. The dark side is that it also works to discipline those who challenge the status quo, because this threatens the underlying power structures of society. When the voice of your inner judge gets louder, that means you’re straying from societal norms. And that’s its agenda: to keep you in line.

Whether you are being called selfish by internal or external voices, both share this agenda. They are not interested in what’s to your benefit, though they may pay lip service to that. Their goal is to get you to behave in ways that benefit others. These voices are insidious. If you are a very individualistic nonconformist, particularly if you are also very sensitive, as creatives often are, their disciplining effect can kill your spirit. But you do not need to apologize for who you are. Only you have your best interests at heart, and you must be your own advocate. It’s a very difficult thing to do, but you can start by practicing your best Madonna response to the voices that seek to diminish you with critical arrows meant to damage your sense of worthiness. Yeah, I’m selfish. So what!