Be selfish

   My father always seems to have the right words to say at the right time. At each new stepping stone and check point in my life he instills new ideals and thoughts in my mind to help me grow and learn. One thing he has tried to imprint in my mind is the idea that it is okay to be selfish. While growing up, most of us are taught to be selfless and make sure we do good for other people. At some point along the way we are so consumed in making other people happy that we lose ourselves and our happiness. If you spend your entire life trying to make other people happy you will inevitably fail. It is impossible to please EVERYONE! In the midst of trying to find what makes other people happy, you end up not knowing what makes you truly happy and then you end up regretting the "what if's" in life. It is pertinent that at some point in your life you know what it is like to be selfish. By being selfish, you end up finding out who you are. Imagine it as the road to self discovery.
    If you are like me, you've spend most of your life worrying about making sure other people are happy and pushed your happiness so far across the world that it has finally made a complete revolution and is now ready to be fully embraced. At this point in my life, I am making the choice to be selfish. Along this journey, I have really started to find out who I am: what I like, what I don't like, what makes me genuinely happy and what sucks all of the energy out of me. I have discovered dreams I never knew I had. I have come upon this huge desire to know what is out "there."
     Being selfish is important because it lets you be you, but it also needs to be fed by the courage to know that you are making the right decisions in this time period. This may mean that you have to make decisions that scare the living crap out of you, but one thing to remember is you cannot grow if you don't change. And that change might be actually making a decision for you.
     My father is a smart man, and I know that he has some experience in this interesting world we live in. One thing I hope to take from his spiel about being selfish is that it is okay to do something to make yourself happy. After all, everyone needs and deserves to be happy for themselves without guilt. Be selfish while you can before you live a life of regret and resentment toward that self-happiness you lost out on.