You were told your entire life to not be selfish. Which is right, you shouldn't be selfish. You shouldn't always walk with yourself before everybody else. But something I think we all need to learn, something I learned very recently, was that to be able to give yourself to people, or to beselfless, you must first learn how to give to yourself, or beselfish.

For some very short years, we get the privilege of living in a different, sacred world. The world of college is an in-between state where you are given freedom, but most of us don't know what to do with it all. It's a world where you are surrounded by the people that will be with you forever, but also a world where heartbreak is all too familiar.

Friendship, relationships, and animosity greet everyone in the face.

What I don't think we all grasp is that we so often throw ourselves, fully, into everything. Some people, like me, give everything to everyone and everything. We try so hard to put everything we have in; we give our bodies, souls, and minds. We give all of ourselves while forgetting that to be able to pour ourselves into other things, projects, and people, we have to have some substance, energy, effort, faith, and, most critically, love, left in ourselves first.

Knowing how to love someone is simply knowing how to love ourselves.

Our society is so analytical on each other, which in turn makes loving one another easier than loving one's own self. We focus on perfection, we focus on accomplishments, we focus on superiority, we focus on appearances, we focus on being ideal, and we focus on utter fulfillment brought to us by things that will not fulfill us.

Why don't we just focus on ourselves? We all have qualities about us that make us wince just even thinking about them, much less actually talking about them. But on the other hand, we have qualities about ourselves that we love. Everyone does, so why is that something we should be shamed to admit? Who cares if your favorite thing about you is your hair? Or your ability to handle pressure in intense situations? Or your smile? Or your ability to give advice? Or your ability to listen? Or your legs? It's your body, your mind, your soul. Do whatever YOU want. Be selfish about it too.

Being selfish isn't wrong. You need to be greedy about yourself. You need to be all about you before you can even try to be all about someone else. Being able to be happy, and fulfilled, and content with ourselves, is the first step in everything. How are you going to expect love from someone else when you don't even know how to love yourself first? How are you going to be able to give everything to something when you can't give everything to yourself first?

Honestly, the only person in the world who can give you everything is yourself.

Being selfish is about being happy with yourself; something we often do not feel. Let's learn to be happy with ourselves. Let's learn to be content with ourselves. Let's just learn to be happy.

Go out there, be happy with yourself, learn what YOU love about yourself. Be selfish. You only get a few years to do it.