Balancing Self-Love and Selfless Action

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love moves the world. It moves us. It gives our lives meaning. We all know what it means to love and be loved, but it’s much harder to know how to stay in love. However, when it comes to loving ourselves, we don’t know what to do. It’s as if the love we deserve is only validated externally. But eventually, we must realize that to learn to love ourselves and to seek within are fundamental pillars of our well-being and fulfillment in life. Many problems arise throughout our lifetimes when we don’t. We get depressed. We feel lonely. Nothing makes sense and we turn outward for love, creating all sorts of additional problems.

Only when we learn to see ourselves as valuable, lovable, worthy, complete, and capable can we then seek to contribute selflessly. Likewise, when we take action and we don’t remove our worthiness from the results we seek, we can feel inadequate and helpless. To feel empowered and confident, we must fully detach our self-worth from our level of performance and free ourselves—this is the foundation of selfless action.

Identity

On February 9th 2013, Nassim N Taleb wrote:

The more someone identifies with a profession or an “accomplishment” such as an award, the less human he will be (in the classical sense). In virtue ethics, the only “excellence” worth attaining is that of “being human”, with all what it entails (honor, courage, service, satisfaction of public & private duties, willingness to face death, etc.); “achievements” are reductions and alienations for lower forms of life.

IN ANCIENT ROME this was a privilege reserved for the patrician class. They were able to engage in professional activities without directly identifying with them: to write books, lead armies, farm land, or transact without being a writer, general, farmer, or merchant, but “a man (*vir* rather than *homo*) who” writes, commands, farms or transacts, as a side activity.

TODAY, as humanity got much, much richer, one would have thought that everyone would have access to the privilege. Instead, I only find it in minimum wage earners who just “make a living” and feel forced to separate their identity from their profession. The higher up in the social ladder, the more people derive their identity from their profession and “achievements”.

Now more than ever, our identity is deliberately sculpted early on by what we can do. Culturally, we praise and celebrate achievements because it means we’re making progress—that we’re becoming “someone.” And when we don’t meet these expectations, it becomes a problem. All throughout school, we are either an A student or we’re not. Grades and performance dictate if we’re good enough. These validations continue well throughout college and our professional lives: the more we achieve, the more “successful” we become.

That’s our ego. We think it’s because we are great that we can win, accomplish, and perform (when we do), rather than our discipline, practice, and grit. So unfortunately, we learn to identify our value with what we do and how well we do it. This vicious cycle is fueled by the fact that we never properly learn to love ourselves despite the results. Instead, we should start by believing we’re always enough and identifying not with outcomes, titles, or salaries, but with the qualities of being a learner, of perseverance, and of contribution.

Best-selling author Adam Grant adds depth to this idea, writing on X (formerly Twitter) on October 2, 2021, that meaningful work isn’t about recognition: “Meaning is about making a difference, not having an audience. It’s better to be valued by a few than to be known by many. Your contribution is not the scope of your reach. It’s the depth of your impact. Your legacy is not how many footprints you leave. It’s how long they last.”

Both Nassim Taleb and Adam Grant remind us that identity shouldn’t be bound to accomplishments or recognition. And while we’re all enough, we’re still subject to the realities of capitalism. Our economic system strives for competition and makes us dependent on resources. From early schooling to late careers, success is often perceived as the result of how much we can actually capitalize on. This is our modern definition of success, of relentless results even at the expense of our own well-being.

While it’s definitely important and necessary to be able to acquire and keep resources, I insist that our identity should be free from profession, outcomes, and achievements. A vision of what we hope to do or achieve serves as a direction, not an identity per se, or a measure of our self-worth. As we saw in a past article titled Reclaiming Virtue, Wisdom, and Meaning in Life, we need to embrace human virtue and honor being human—a love within and action beyond.

Love Within

Love within is about learning to respect, care for, and see ourselves as valuable. Sometimes I feel silly saying these things and reminding myself about this. The reality is most children grow up seeing themselves positively—until all the external measuring begins: grades, jobs, accomplishments, or possessions. And this leaves us falling short because the act of measuring up is never enough. There’s always someone else to compare ourselves with. That’s the first pitfall, measuring ourselves unreasonably, unfairly, and endlessly.

However, it’s not just that. The second pitfall is failing to recognize that we’re very good at being happy with ourselves when everything is going well. It’s easy to like ourselves when we’re happy and excited. But it’s much harder when we’re held back by emotions like anxiety, frustration, or fear. Wanting to feel only the positive is what leads us astray. I believe we’re all very capable of handling the negative if we learn to accept all emotions.

Regardless, love within is a continuous process of introspection and self-care. It’s a process of acceptance, compassion, and empathy toward ourselves—especially when we don’t feel like it. And of course, this doesn’t mean we abandon all standards. This reinforces the idea that we can grow despite difficulty and negative thoughts or feelings. Love within is about embracing all our humanity, the good and the bad.

To cultivate love within, consider the following:

• Self-Awareness: Be aware of your thoughts and feelings, and learn to use them constructively. If a thought or feeling isn’t helping you, don’t fight, ignore, or repress them—see them through. What are they trying to communicate? Rather than having our emotions hold us hostage, we want them to be our greatest allies: guiding and fueling us for the better. Just because we have undesired thoughts or feelings doesn’t mean they’re always real.
• Empathy: Allow yourself to feel all feelings. A great deal of our suffering is trying not to feel everything. Have empathy with yourself, be patient and kind in the process.
• Expression: Be creative. Being human is about finding a creative outlet for our passions and dreams. Believing you’re worth of expression is a great way to love within.
• Purpose: Seek to find, create, connect, or cultivate purpose. Tap into something bigger than yourself.
• Virtue: Cultivate human virtue to develop and practice the traits we seek within—kindness, courage, empathy, acceptance. These virtues are our lifelong companions, helping us be our best selves when we need direction.

In other words, love within is a stance that your self-worth is never at stake. We all make mistakes, have setbacks, and struggle, and that’s fine. But instead of blaming yourself or feeling less capable, embrace an identity you can safely rely on: being a learner. As a learner, you can solve problems, make amends, have perseverance and see whatever it is through. You can be confident in your ability to learn rather than expecting to know everything. Of course the more you increase your skills or abilities, the greater the monetary rewards. But remember, those rewards (or consequences) stem from your actions. And actions can always be improved or changed.

Action Beyond

Action beyond is about selfless action. Even though it can often be a tug-of-war between self-care and selfless action, action beyond is about detaching your identity from your work, performance, or any kind of creative output. What does that mean? It means that whatever the output is, it doesn’t measure who you are. The goal is to strive to break free from this, so that you are able to learn from it. To welcome constructive criticism, to lead, to be part of something bigger than yourself.

Taking difficult action is often not just about letting go of external expectations or accomplishments but also about confronting our inner critic. Letting go doesn’t mean suppressing, controlling, fighting, or ignoring these inner voices. It’s continuing forward despite them. In his book The Confidence Gap, Russ Harris explains that negative thoughts are not inherently problematic unless we give them all our attention, fight them, or treat them as the gospel truth. He points out that: “[…] when we defuse from our thoughts—when we separate from them and realize that they are nothing more nor less than words and pictures—then they have little or no effect on us (even if they happen to be true).”

Our creative expression should be its own reward, regardless of our audience or how well it does. When we commit to the process, we welcome feedback without feeling branded by it. Yet, the process itself should remain our biggest reward. This is why being intrinsically motivated matters—it keeps our focus on the process rather than the performance of self. Ironically, when we surrender to the process and we let go of the outcome, we produce our best work.

Naturally, your work can reflect who you are—whether through your personality or preferences. But it’s simply never a measure of your or anyone else’s worthiness. When we take action, we step up by stepping down, recognizing that our contribution, what we do, should be about others. External validation, in this sense, is not about you, but about the work itself. This approach can help us learn and improve more clearly, with less of the baggage.

When we successfully navigate the balance between self-care and selfless action, we become empowered individuals. We’re more likely to do work that matters and we take better care of ourselves. We become true learners and remain open to constructive criticism. Paradoxically, we embrace our potential by letting go of the need to validate it. And when action beyond becomes consuming, it’s a sign to return to love within—to reflect on your purpose, reconnect with your values, and detach yourself once again. In doing so, we renew our vision and become re-energized.

This philosophy starkly contrasts with the modern bias toward unrelenting productivity and achievement. In the Western world, society tends to prioritize productivity over excellence, busyness over introspection, and achievement over simply being human. When we neglect the self, we get disconnected from everything that matters. When we neglect action beyond, we wander aimlessly, devoid of purpose and meaning. By embracing this delicate balance between self-love and selfless action, we strengthen our character, our resolve, and find a sense of harmony and meaning in our lives.