There’s a word that used to cut me deep: selfish.
When someone called me that, it felt like an indictment of my character, a verdict on my worth as a person. So I did what any well-intentioned person would do—I overcorrected. I threw myself into community work, into showing up for others, into proving that I could be selfless. I wanted to erase that label, to become someone unrecognizable from the person I feared I was. And somewhere in that transformation, I lost myself entirely.
The Pendulum Swing
The journey from “selfish” to community-centered wasn’t wrong. In fact, parts of it were necessary and beautiful. I learned the power of showing up for people. I discovered that my actions could create ripples of good in my community. I found purpose in service.
But I swung too far.
I became a people pleaser. The kind of person who says “yes” when everything in my body is screaming no. The kind who shrinks to make others comfortable, who calculates every decision based on how it will be received rather than whether it feels right. I stopped asking “What do I need?” and started only asking “What do they need from me?”
Now I find myself in this strange in-between space, riding a constant flux between taking & receiving and I’m realizing these aren’t even the same thing!
Taking vs. Receiving
There’s a desperation in taking. It’s grabbing what you can get because you’ve forgotten you deserve to simply receive. Taking comes from scarcity, from the belief that you have to fight for scraps, that life only gives you what you can wrestle from its grip.
Receiving is different. Receiving is open-handed. It’s believing you’re worthy of good things without having to perform or manipulate or calculate your way into them. It’s accepting what comes to you without the bitter aftertaste of guilt or the anxiety of wondering when the other shoe will drop.
I’ve forgotten how to receive. I’ve forgotten what it means to advocate for myself, to stand firm in what I need and want without immediately second-guessing whether I’m being “too much” or slipping back into that dreaded “selfishness”.
The Calculation Trap
Somewhere along the way, life became a spreadsheet. Every interaction became something to analyze: Did I give enough? Did I take too much? What will this look like to others? What’s the next best move to maintain the version of myself I’ve carefully constructed?
This constant calculation is exhausting. It turns joy into strategy and spontaneity into risk assessment. I’m always three steps ahead, planning how something will land rather than experiencing how it feels right now.
I want to stop calculating. I want to return to a space where I can just be—where doing what feels good and what feels right isn’t immediately followed by an internal audit of whether it was the correct choice.
What I’m Learning to Remember
The work now isn’t to swing back to the beginning, to reclaim some version of selfishness as a badge of honor. That’s just another overcorrection, another extreme.
The work is to find the middle, the space where I can be both generous & boundaried, both community-centered & self-honoring. Where I can advocate for myself without shame and show up for others without losing myself in the process.
I’m learning that accepting “what little life gives me” isn’t humility—it’s self-abandonment dressed up as virtue. I’m learning that standing up for myself doesn’t make me the person I was afraid of becoming. It makes me whole.
So this is my commitment: to stop calculating and start feeling. To do what feels good, what feels right, without immediately interrogating whether it’s the “next best thing” or how it will appear to an imaginary audience that’s probably not even paying attention.
To receive instead of take.
To exist instead of perform.
To remember that the opposite of selfish isn’t selfless—it’s balanced. It’s integrated. It’s human.
With love, I’m trying not to forget: I deserve to take up space. I deserve to want things. I deserve to say no. And none of that makes me the person I was once afraid of being.
It just makes me me.
What about you? Have you found yourself swinging between extremes, searching for the place where you can be both generous and whole? I’d love to hear about your journey in the comments below.
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