Self love and selfishness: how are they different?

A term that we hear a lot about lately is self-love. Although it may seem like a recent idea, different philosophers and thinkers have conceptualized their ideas about loving oneself. Augustine of Hippo has done it, and Aristotle had done it before. The latter also delved into the ambiguity of the concept of self-love or selfishness, a distinction that even today remains blurred. Our worldview has changed radically since then, so that even what we understand by "self-love" and what by "egoism" has undergone changes.

Not being able to understand the differences between both concepts can cause problems in our relationship with ourselves and with others; so then We will see how to distinguish self-love from selfishness and why it is important to do so.

• Related article: "Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?"

Self love: what is it?

As we said, self-love is a subject that has been addressed by different thinkers throughout history and whose paths have intersected with that of psychology. It is not an easy term to define, but we could argue that it is about the acceptance of the characteristics that constitute oneself. in a broad sense -physical, psychological or cultural-, a determining quality in the way in which we observe reality and ourselves themselves.

However, the contributions of scientific psychology to the conception of self-love have been made from the concept of self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to an individual's subjective evaluation of his own worth as a person. It is important to emphasize the word subjective, since self-esteem does not refer to the objective talents or abilities of a person, nor to how it is evaluated by others; Rather, it is a feeling of sufficiency or self-fulfilment. Also involves feelings of self-acceptance and self-respect. Here we can see how this concept is tinged with the idea of ​​self-love that many philosophers have investigated.

Something also relevant about self-esteem is that, although it is a relatively stable quality, it is not entirely static or immutable. That makes it correct to refer to it not only as a quality, but as an empirically measurable variable; we could say, an "amount" capable of fluctuating depending on the circumstances. When it is commonly said that someone "has very good self-esteem" it is because that state of positive evaluation of the person with himself has been prolonged over time.

In fact, some research has studied how self-esteem fluctuates with age. Evidence suggests that it increases from adolescence to mid-adulthood, its peak is between the ages of 50 and 60, and then declines towards old age. Likewise, determining a person's self-esteem seems to be useful as a predictor of well-being in certain areas of life, such as health, interpersonal relationships or work.

• You may be interested in: "Do you really know what self-esteem is?"

How is self-love different from selfishness?

Beyond what has been developed, there are still many people who confuse self-love with selfishness, or, in any case, who are reluctant to the idea of ​​loving themselves. In part, this is because the idea that being selfish is sinful still persists within Western culture. Other qualities, on the other hand, such as humility, being "low profile" or sacrificing personal well-being for the good of others, are put on a pedestal. Therefore, it is understandable that these two concepts lend themselves to confusion, and therefore, many fear that accepting themselves will be seen by others as a selfish or deplorable attitude.

Nevertheless, the difficulties to discern both concepts can bring consequences. Not cultivating self-love because of the mistaken belief that this would imply following the path of selfishness could lead to attitudes such as not recognizing one's own achievements and not thank you when you are flattered, expressed in modest phrases such as: “Yes, I did very well on the exam, but I have also been lucky with the questions that have been given to me. touched".

On the other hand, this confusion hides the danger of not knowing how to set limits for others for fear that doing so is a selfish act. However, nothing is further from reality. Having the ability to set a limit to another person that he is having some behavior that bothers one or supposes some discomfort —for example, asking my couple that does not use the cell phone when I am telling them how my day was— is an attitude that expresses self care. On the other hand, whoever considers that "saying no" in certain situations is an act of selfishness - boasting of phrases that could sound like "it's just that he has had a very long and has the right to use the phone for a while"— could sacrifice something extremely valuable to herself, such as sharing quality time with her couple.

Self-love, contrary to the strong connotation of "selfishness" that tends to be attributed to it, is not to stop thinking about others either. Acts of self-love will allow honest and robust interpersonal bonds to be established, assuming an improvement between both parties. Saying what happens to one is also taking care of the other. In fact, a good self-concept will enable the person to evaluate in which circumstances it is worth setting limits and in which to allow certain attitudes from the other. The latter can also be a functional decision in your life. In short, power take off the concept of self-love from that of egoism can shed light on the importance of value and accept our unique qualities and, at the same time, evaluate those behaviors that we believe we could modify to build a better bond with ourselves and others.