Be Selfish

Be Selfish. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about me first.

The origin of this, I was at Aspen and it was with one of my counselors. Now, if you’ve read the story, 12 Years In Hell, you’ll recall when I was at Aspen, I was moving up the chain of accomplishment. That was my goal. I wanted to achieve the greatest level they had. However, I didn’t make it. I made it to the second highest level, but when I became Buffalo, which I got my own knife, and then I also became, or assumed the responsibility of divvying out the food when staff would resupply our food. So it was me and my other buddy. He was also a Buffalo. We were the only two in the group that wanted to achieve greatness. The other ones were kind of whatever. They’re here, they’re fine. And they didn’t have any real motivation to progress in the program.

They were just biding their time and then they’re ready to go. However, the other one with me, my good friend, the two of us would go off with the staff and then divvy out all the piles. Then the other group members would come and pick their food. Now, one of the staff members told us this and it didn’t sit well with me because there’d be extra food every week. Now he didn’t tell us it was our food, which it could have been. It could have been our food because we had upgraded ourselves in the program. But the way he put it was he asked us, “What do you guys want to do? Do you want to divvy this out equally among everybody? Or keep it for yourself and basically hide it from the group?”

Now me being me, I was going to divide it by the group because I figured we were all a group, but he told us both this. He said, “Nah, man. You need to be selfish. You need to think about yourself.” He said, “You put in all this hard work. You are at a level that none of them wanted to be at. So it’s only fair that you give yourself more.” Now, with this counselor, he always rubbed me the wrong way. This is the reason he rubbed me the wrong way. Before this conversation he had with my friend and I, he used to always want his fair share. So we’re out there camping for the whole week. He’s only out there for a few days and he gets to go home, but we couldn’t leave if we made something good, he wanted his fair share. He always wanted to make sure he was not forgotten.

It rubbed me the wrong way because I was like, “Man, you get to go home. Why are you trying to eat our good food while you’re out here with us?” But then after he had that conversation with us, with me and my friend, I looked at what he was doing a little different. He was showing us to basically be assertive and make sure that you don’t get forgotten. And that’s where we get be selfish. There’s nothing wrong with thinking me first. So if you put in the hard work, then give yourself more. Don’t put in all the work and share evenly. That doesn’t make any sense. I thought it made sense when I was younger, but the older I get, I understand what he’s saying. If you’re willing to put in the hard work, because not very many people are, if you’re willing to put in the hard work, then be selfish and give yourself more. Now let’s get into the class.

Forget to love yourself and others will follow suit. Never have time for yourself or never have time for themselves. Yep. Giving your time and energy to others allows their body to go. Everyone has a moment when enough is enough, some just fail to do something about it. Searches for external approval, opposed to within and stays in bed all the time. Lack of stimulus.

To be selfish is almost to love yourself. It’s okay. Everyone always thinks being selfish is wrong. “Don’t think of yourself. Think of others first. Think of everybody else.” But no. If you forget to love yourself, no one else will. I attest to that. If you don’t care about you, no one else will. If I didn’t care about myself, nobody else would. If you haven’t heard the story, if you haven’t read it, read it.

Throughout those 12 years, I had absolutely nobody. So I had to depend on myself and I don’t know. Maybe love yourself is kind of cheesy because I did love myself, but it was more than love myself. I had to depend. Everything was about survival. So was it beyond loving myself? I had to survive, right? So fight or flight, either I’m going to die or I’m going to fight to stay alive. I didn’t make the right choices all the time, but I’m still here. So whatever. So never have time for themselves and giving time and energy to others. If you don’t love yourself, then you’re always going to be persuaded to do other things that doesn’t necessarily benefit you.

Does that make sense? So if you don’t have a goal, like we’ve talked about throughout these 12 steps, right? We’re on step 11 right now. So, by this point in time hopefully you understand that you need to set time for yourself. You can’t be a yes man. You need to have a well-defined plan in order to succeed. So never having time for yourself, if you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have a mission, if you don’t know exactly where you are going, then you have too much free time. And then that free time, you might not think you have free time. You might always be busy, but that doesn’t mean that you’re accomplishing anything. So if you don’t have a mission, a goal, a direct plan, like a direct place where you’re going, then you’re going to fill that time with other people’s dreams, with other people’s missions. You might not know it, but you are.

Allow their body to go. When you don’t love yourself, you’re not going to do certain things to make sure you’re going to survive. And it’s almost, it’s crazy. They call it relationship weight or whatever. I’ve never understood this. Okay? You’re in a relationship with somebody and then you guys gain weight. You worked so hard, you cared about yourself to attract another person. And when you get attracted to that other person that’s attracted to you, you hook up, you become an item. You’re a couple. Well then, it almost seems like both of you guys forgot why you were attracted to each other. You were attracted to each other because you took care of yourself. And then after they’re together and it’s kind of like their belly kind of sticks out a little bit and then they get the double chin. All that and they forget to love themselves. They’re so consumed about loving this other person because they’re happy. They’re no longer alone or whatever, that now all their time they were loving themselves, they didn’t think they were loving themselves because they were alone. And so how could I be loving myself if I’m alone?

It’s actually easier to love yourself when you’re alone, Because the person who loves you, doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. So if you’re getting a little chubby around the waist, “No, honey, you look great,” even though that back of your mind, you’re telling you, “Man, I’m getting fat.” “Honey, am I getting fat?” “No, babe, you’re great.” “I guess I’m not fat. She loves me anyways.”

Well, that’s searching for external approval opposed to within. When you have that split second thought, “I’m getting fat,” you’re not approving yourself. But when you ask someone else who you know is going to be your cheerleader, you’re looking for external approval because you know that you are critical on yourself so you’d rather take the easy route. Now I skipped a little bit, right? That’s searching for external approval, but it also goes with allowing their body to go because everybody has this moment when they look in the mirror and they’re like, “I’m fat. Enough is enough.” But how many people fail to do something about it? And they fail to do something about it because they’re looking for external approval opposed to within. You know you don’t approve of the way you look. You know you don’t approve of huffing and puffing, walking up and down the stairs.

You know you don’t approve of not being able to play with your kids. You know you don’t approve of your sexual relationships and not being able to breathe and much less enjoy it because you’re out of breath. You don’t enjoy that. What are you going to do about it? Most people go try to find a pill. All right, but something’s wrong with my heart. No, something’s wrong with what you’ve been eating. Something’s wrong with the lack of exercise. It’s not fixable with a pill. This is what not loving yourself gets. It gets you down the rabbit hole of medicine and pills and prescriptions and everything else to lose control of your body. 30 years later, you will look at yourself and then understand what I’m talking about.

Let’s say your finances are mediocre. You’re not doing very well. But then when you ask all your friends or coworkers, how they’re doing and you’re doing better than they are, even though for yourself, you’re like, you know down inside you could be doing better. You could be more responsible, but searching for external approval. Everybody else approved of how irresponsible you’ve been with your money, because they’re just as irresponsible or more.

Not listening to yourself. Listening to other people and being influenced by their goals, their dreams, their satisfactions, their standards for themselves. Stays in bed all the time. Lack of stimulus. I didn’t say lacks motivation. I said, lacks stimulus. Now, I’m not one to be in bed all the time. Although I’m in the room majority of the time and I might be sitting in the bed just because my chair’s a little uncomfortable and the beds a little bit more comfortable. But when I’m talking about them in bed all the time, I’m talking about they need to be sleeping all the time. They’re not happy. They’re depressed. They’re sad. They’re slow. They’re moving slow. They’re not walking with a purpose. Right? You can tell when someone’s not walking with a purpose. We went over this already. They’re not happy. They’re depressed. They think that it’s some magic pill or magic potion they need to feel better. But then they get that magic potion. They feel better for just a minute but then they’re right back in the bed feeling miserable.

That’s one searching for external approval because they don’t approve of themselves. So they’re searching for somewhere else to find approval. So when they have a party,or they go to a party they’re so excited because they’re going to get interaction from other people. “Oh, you look gorgeous. Oh, you’re so handsome tonight.” You’re getting approval by other people. “Oh, do you want to go hook up tonight? You want to come home with me?” External approval. You might not approve of yourself, but this girl wants to take you home. Or this guy wants to take you home. So they’re giving you that approval. But then the next day, once everything’s back to normal, you’re back in bed because you were searching for external approval, opposed to searching within, to find your own approval for yourself. Now I believe the cause of this is lack of stimulus, right?

You’re not stimulating your brain. You’re bored, not depressed. You’re bored. I talked about this yesterday. I don’t remember exactly when I was discussing this. So I don’t want to say in a previous chapter. I was watching YouTube. I watch YouTube when I ride the bike or when I’m running. YouTube’s great, however, when I search a topic, then all they do is bombard me with the same exact topic. So after a week, there is no more stimulus for it. And so that initial burst of energy, I had excitement about, “Oh, I’m learning great new things. This is amazing,” it dies out because lack of stimulus. They have over saturated me with so much of the same information it’s, “Okay. I watched this one video. That’s great. Watch another one. No, it’s kind of the same thing, but still great.”

After a week because I watch an hour every morning it’s, “My goodness. They’re saying the same thing they have for the last week and a half.” So I’m done. My stimulus for that topic is over. But then what happens in today’s society is there’s no other stimulus around because like I said, unless you are constantly finding stimulus from other sources, if all you’re doing is finding sources of stimulus from the same media sources that you have been doing, then of course, you’re going to be depressed. They berated you with so much of the same information. It becomes boring. There is no growth because they have restricted your growth. Does that make sense? They think that they’re doing you a favor by finding your interests.

But in all actuality, they’re restricting your interests. They’re not allowing you to be interested in anything other than what you’re interested in right now. Because they’re only going to bombard you with what you’re interested in right now. So it’s impossible to grow and it’s very, very restricting and can cause a lot of depression and I understand why people can’t get out of bed because they’re only seeing the same world over and over and over and over and over.

I don’t want to toot the horn on a library. But part of the reason why I say get a library, do you see how many books… That’s just one bookshelf. There’s thousands of books in this house. Thousands of books in this house. So every day when I wake up, I have… What there’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, there’s almost 700 books in here, probably more. 700 different stimuli to stimulate my imagination. So on Google, I can stimulate something else. So I have that ability, which most people don’t have, which is the stimulus, the little pockets of stimulus all over my house, through these books. But most people, they stay in bed because they have no stimulus. They’ve been restricted and confined into this little finite box through social media and they’re trapped and they don’t know how to get out.

It Is Impossible To Love Others If You First Do Not Love Yourself. In this section, we’re going to go through integrity, creating a goal and sticking to it at all costs. Allow yourself to trust yourself, understands change equals change. Being brutally honest with oneself, then making the correct changes. Sets extremely high standards and sets out to achieve and maintain, constantly raising the bar to improve. Understanding sleep is vital, but prefers creating, experimenting, and working.

With being selfish and loving yourself. So if you don’t love yourself we just talked about what will happen. So loving yourself. I’m a firm believer you can’t love somebody else if you don’t first love yourself. If you think you do, but you’re dependent on the other person to feel good about yourself inside. It’s a codependent relationship. It’s not a true, healthy relationship. We can go into that, how it is a codependent relationship, but that’s a whole different rabbit hole.

Integrity, creating a goal and sticking to it at all costs. So we talked about this in, “I Stay Ready” about accomplishing small little goals, right? Well, with building integrity to yourself, it’s holding yourself to a higher standard and sticking to it. So if you’re like, I’m not going to call my ex after a bad breakup and you stick to that goal and you don’t call that person until you understand that you’re no longer emotionally attached. That’s building a little bit of trust within yourself and it’s allowing yourself to build self-confidence. Well, you’re building self-confidence and through that, you’re trusting yourself a little bit more. So by creating small little goals, some little challenges, and then sticking to it, not just achieving it. Achieving, it’s like writing a paper and getting over it, but doing something challenging a habit if it’s working out. Like, “I’m going to do this and hell or high water, I’m going to do this every single day. Nothing in this world’s going to stop me from running 20 minutes a day or walking,” if you need to start somewhere.

If it’s walking 10 minutes a day, if you stick to that goal and there’s hell or high water, you will not fail. Over time your body will start listening to itself and will start to trust itself. Then if you’re having problems with finances and you’re like, “I’m not going to overspend anymore. I’m not going to spend money on frivolous things,” and you stick to that goal, well, slowly but surely, you’re going to have more opportunities come into your life and you’re going to trust yourself more. You’re going to trust your decisions, which makes you happier. If you could trust every decision that you ever make, you’d be a happy person. The problem is, a lot of us don’t trust our own selves. We think we trust ourselves, but we don’t. We act on impulse a lot, your argument is going to be, “I trust myself.” Is that why you’re in debt?

Understand change equals change. Being brutally honest with oneself, then making the correct changes. Change equals change out of the cascade playbook. They used to always say that, “Change equals change. If you want something different, you have to do something different.” But if you want to start loving yourself, you have to look in that mirror and be brutally honest about everything there is about you, you don’t like. And don’t just look at the physical, look at the emotional, look at the spiritual and take time to change it little by little. A person that doesn’t love themselves and looks externally for love, they look in the mirror and they might feel stupid, or they might not feel adequate. So they go ask their mom and their mom reassures them how great they are.

In the world today everybody gets a trophy even if you came in last, they still give you a trophy because they don’t want to let you feel left out and they don’t want to be brutally honest with you that you lost. And you are not as good as everybody else. In today’s society they want everybody to think that everyone’s equal. Nobody’s equal. They never have been. Some people work their ass off and some people do not.

I’ve used this before. This analogy is with most of my friends, we started off equal, but I chose to lock myself in a room and read books and educate myself, while they chose to spend time with their families and enjoy life. But in the end, we’re no longer equal. My finances are much better than theirs. Their finances are basically the same as when we first started our friendship. Mine have not. My education level, not school education, my personal gain in education is not the same. So there’s no possible way that you could even fathom the thought that we’re equal. we’re not. The more you learn, the more you earn. People who spend the time being brutally honest with themselves to fix what they do not like or feel. I mean, you might like it, but it might not be the best thing. So you get rid of what’s not working and you keep what is working, right?

And part of Getting rid of what’s not working is being brutally honest with yourself. And through being brutally honest, you’re going to start to love yourself. You’re going to not like people who are not honest with themselves, because you can tell. You can tell, when someone’s taking a selfie, a beautiful picture, and they got half their belly hanging out, right. That person is just taking that picture trying to feel good, but there’s no possible way they feel good about themselves when they’re huffing and puffing, walking up stairs. But you can start feeling great about yourself if last month it was hard to walk up those stairs and this month it’s easier. You’re starting to love yourself by being brutally honest with yourself and making the correct changes necessary to begin to love yourself.

Sets extremely high standards and sets out to achieve and maintain, constantly raising the bar to improve. Now, how much do you love yourself? To what degree? I say that for this. They say that we only use 15% of our brain. We probably only use 15% of our whole entire body, right? Because let me ask you a question. You ever played a sport you haven’t played in a while and the next day you’re like, “Man, I’m sore in muscles I didn’t even know existed.” All right. So when you’re being brutally honest with yourself and set extremely high standards, when I’m asking you, “How much do you love yourself?” to what degree? It’s a valid question. To what degree do you love yourself? Do you want to utilize yourself 100% as in using all your muscles for what they’re made for? To use 100% of your mental capability. So use 100% of your brain. Is that what your goal is? Is that what loving yourself means, is to utilize yourself or do you only want to love yourself maybe 5 to 10%. True love of oneself is wanting to maximize yourself.

Let me give you an example. If you love your kids, I mean, in theory, you want the absolute best for your kid, right? Sound education, loving family, loving wife, or husband, financial success. A parent’s dream wanting the best because you love them. Well, wouldn’t that also mean if you love yourself, you want the absolute best for yourself? The only way to achieve the absolute best is to start breaking down the barriers on your inability to use your full mental capability. Does that make sense? So when asked, “How much do you love yourself, to what degree?” If you’re brutally honest with yourself, you can gauge how much active participation you are participating in to better yourself, mentally, physically, spiritually.

Now sets extremely high standards, then sets out to achieve and maintain, consistently raising the bar to improve. The only way that you can achieve full love of yourself is to get to one level, love yourself for that, but then seek for the next level. No, I don’t know what using 100% of my brain looks like. So maybe once I get to 50%, my mentality changes and I’m like, “I can move things with my hand. I can fly. I can manipulate people with my mind. I can turn the TV on just by thinking, I can manipulate the stock market by visualizing it.” All right. I don’t know what power can happen when you use 80% of our brain. Never seen it. So maybe when I get to that, my standards might be a little bit different. I’d be like, “Well, I’ve accomplished everything. The only thing else there is, is maybe move the world.” All right. But until I get to a point where I’m maximizing my personal ability, I have to consistently raise the bar, set a high standard and then try to maintain it. Once I can maintain it, raise the bar even further.

If you consistently do this, don’t worry about where you started. You’re wasting time. But after a while, you can look back and be like, “Wow, that’s crazy. Something that took me months to write a year ago, now I can do in a week. It’s a great progression. I love myself even better. I’m more efficient.”

Understands sleep is vital but prefers creating, experimenting, and working. Now this goes with the opposite of not loving yourself and wanting to be in bed all day because you’re not stimulated. But when you love yourself and you’re completely stimulated, sleep is a little bit in the way. You understand the importance of it and you might even have to take naps throughout the day to maintain maximum capacity of your mental capabilities. So yes, sleep is vital for the brain, for your body to recharge. However, when you’re truly in love with yourself, it’s more, “Just let me get this sleep over and let me wake up and do some more stuff. Let me finish creating this project I was in. Let me finish this experiment. Hold on, babe. Let me finish working real quick. I’m almost done.” When you have that amount of care and compassion and love for what you’re doing, it’s because what you’re doing is a part of yourself.

Does that make sense? So when you’re creating something that you just can’t sleep in, you can’t sleep. You’re so giddy. You’re so excited, but you’re falling asleep because you know sleep is vital. All right. Well, when you wake up, you’re motivated, ready to go. Let’s keep on going. Where did I leave off? Okay, let’s go. When you’re in creative mode and you’re focused about being creative and creating, then your creation is your love for yourself. When you’re experimenting and you’re trying to experiment with a new gizmo gadget, new formula, you’re putting your heart and energy into that because that’s your love, working. You hear the greats like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant would spend hours in the gym, mastering their craft. Basketball is love for them. They love themselves so there was no amount of work that they could put in that was too much for them. They were living what made them the happiest, being on that basketball court, being in that gym, struggling, sweating, bleeding, whatever it was, broken this, broken that, stubbed this stub that.

They were willing to go through all the pain because they loved it. Not every moment was great. Just like when you’re creating, not every moment’s great or experimenting. Some things could blow up in front of you and set you back. But it’s the hunt and it’s the grind that keeps them going because they’re trying to maximize their mental capability, their physical capability and their spiritual capability. And when you multilaterally combine your mind, body, and spirit, like we discussed in “staying ready”, then you understand what loving yourself is and all the other noise won’t even matter. It won’t. It won’t matter what people think of you because you’re doing what you feel is best for you. It won’t matter about what’s going on in the news. You’ll be focused on what’s going on in you.

All right. Our last chapter is going to be a fun one. Either you do, or you don’t.

Be Selfish

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