Doing something for yourself is a perfectly moral thing to do.
You don’t need a reason to change your life; you don’t need to justify your personal decisions.
It’s not selfish to follow a dream. You’re not a narcissist for looking after yourself.
In my first book, The Art of Non-Conformity, I told the story of Bernard Lopez.
After working in New York at the same comfortable job for eight years, Bernard Lopez suddenly quit, broke the lease he had signed on a new apartment, withdrew all his retirement savings, and set out to travel across the United States by bicycle. One of the questions he heard over and over (after the initial reaction of “Are you crazy?”) was “Are you doing this to raise money for charity?”
If Bernard had said yes, most people would have nodded their heads, their curiosity at least partially satisfied. It’s usually acceptable, if not always completely understood, to do something unconventional when it benefits other people. But Bernard wasn’t raising money for charity or riding his bike across the country to raise awareness for anything. “No,” he said truthfully when people asked. “I’m doing it for me.”
The idea for the cross-country trip didn’t come entirely out of nowhere. Bernard had recently ended a seven-year relationship, and shortly after that painful separation, his father was killed in an accident. After reflecting on these events during a long walk one day, the idea came to him: “I should leave my life in New York behind and bike across America.”
Riding a bike day after day for 4,000 miles is both challenging and simple. It’s challenging because your body and your mind both need time to adapt. It’s simple because once you adapt, you have just one task to complete every day: keep going.
Bernard dutifully adjusted and settled in, finding a rhythm and completing the trip on schedule. Afterward, he made other big changes, switching up his career and leaving New York for Chicago.
Later he said, “It is no exaggeration that the bicycle trip changed my life and allowed me to reach my full potential.”
Isn’t that amazing?! He reached his full potential by following his dream, not in direct service to anyone else.
You don’t need a reason to change your life; you don’t need to justify your personal decisions.
Doing something for yourself is a perfectly moral thing to do.
P.S. I told this story in video form recently as well:
I am for doing thing for yourself if you can. Although not feasible for a lot of people for multiple reasons. He had a reason for doing so (to get away from it all) and he did but he didn't need permission to do so and it worked for him. Bravo!
It’s true. He learned to rely on himself. To make do. He won at life before ever retiring.