i feel like being confident is selfish... :S

That's a great attitude and choice to decide to be happy. Being happy and confident is far from selfish- It's healthy. and you know what- It might wear off on others too! I hear its contagious. And for those around you who might not be happy remember what has helped you and use it to encourage.. it doesn't take away from empathy... not everyone can be chipper all the time.The way I look at it is every feeling is real and valid.. it's how you choose to act (or not) upon it that matters, and that's a choice that's up to each individual.I try to remember this when I feel like my empathy and encouragement don't work to help cheer others up.


'I kinda feel like I shouldn't be thinking about myself or doing anything to help myself or make me happy, but should only try to make others' happy.. '
-I feel this way too sometimes. What I really love is doing a lot of volunteering because it makes me happy to be able to help out others and make them happy. Or baking.. doing little thoughtful things for people. Their gratitude gives me joy.

I also echo this
"If you don't take care of yourself, you really can't do anything as effectively as you'd like to. If you aren't healthy in body, mind and spirit, you're always keeping a bit of yourself back, even from the people with whom you feel the closest. "

and this

"Plus, you can't truly give to others unless you can see the value and gifts within yourself."

Taking care of yourself enables you to be a better everything to those around you!

If the abuse came from your family of origin, I would recommend severely reducing contact with them, as they are the people that you probably feel you need to make happy, and they will only reinforce the fact that you should make them happy at your own expense.

^ This too, forgot to mention it in my earlier post. It took an entire year of having zero contact with my father (mother is deceased) before the healing process began on its own, without my having to "force it".

It's easy - be so f u * * i n g fabulous that it is impossible not to be confident - worked for me for 20 years

OP should read some Ayn Rand.

I was actually thinking of the same thing. You don't have to buy into her entire philosophy (she had a lot to say about gov't, business, money, etc that people interpret in, um, interesting ways... especially on the far right), but she did make some pretty good points that you might like to consider about the importance of the ego and being selfish sometimes. Anthem was actually one of my favorite required reading books from high school. (It's a novel about individualism vs collectivism, set in a distopia where collectivism is taken to the extreme so much so that people don't have real names. The individualistic protagonist/main character searches for happiness and meaning in his life ever since his society forced him to be a street sweeper instead of a scholar like he dreamed of being.)

Here are a few examples from her works:

"To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the I.' "

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

"To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love—because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone."

"[Selfless love] would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you. I don’t have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person."

"One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love. A 'selfless,' 'disinterested' love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values. Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a 'sacrifice' for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies."