Okay, so it’s not actually selfish. It’s necessary. You have to care for yourself before you do for anyone else. Say you were drowning and you saw some one else drowning. Or course you’d wanna help them, but how could you, when you are too? You can’t. It’s like the same in a less-intense situation.

I’m sure you all always want to help your friends or others when they’re going through something. That good. However, it becomes bad when you yourself also need help or are down. If you have problems, and you push them aside for someone else, that is unacceptable. You need to say to them, “Listen, I really do care about this and you and want to help you, but I can’t right now because I’m going through something too.” You might be the only person they have to turn too. You may feel awful and selfish and like you’re a horrible person and horrible friend or sibling or something else.

But none of that matters. What matters is you and taking care of your problem before anyone else’s. If you get better and that person still needs help, then yeah, help them (if it won’t trigger you again for any reason).

But remember that there’s nobody more important than you in your life, and that’s why you’re always your priority in your life. Without you, you wouldn’t even have a life at all. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true: without your functioning body and mind, you would not have a life to enjoy. Other people may make your life better and add more meaning to it, but what’s the point of that if you don’t even have a life because you never took care of yourself? If may not seem like a big deal to push aside yourself for some “small” thing, but it’ll happen more and more, and it’ll get worse and worse, and eventually something BAD will happen to you.

One of my favorite quotes that relate to this are “Why you wanna please the world and leave yourself to drop dead?” in Paramore’s songs, “Anklebiters.” And it’s true. What the use in helping everyone else if it’s making you miserable? You wanna help the world? Then help yourself, too. You’re a part of the world too, and you’re just as important as anyone else (if anything, you’re more important to yourself, so you should always make sure you make yourself happy no matter who wants your help).

Taking care of yourself is an essential part of life. Everyone should do it; if they did, the world would truly be a better place. Heck, it’ll be a better place even if you’re the only person who does it. And remember, if you try giving this advice to someone else and they don’t take it, don’t try to devote your whole life to make them; you can’t make anyone do anything. Plus, it’s literally the opposite of what you’re trying to tell them to do.

Anyway, just remember this: you don’t have any obligations to help anyone before you help yourself, no matter who they are or what they’ve done for you. You’ve done more for yourself than they’ll ever do, and because of that, you have to make yourself your number one priority and take care of yourself before anyone else.