Being told your selfish

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I used to be called selfish all the time but now that I'm in a better environment I'm the one calling myself selfish. My line of thinking is "I am in the minority, so as long as everyone else is happy I should just shut up." Not good when that leads to meltdowns or being unable to do my work properly. And a huge problem when I'm trying to advocate for myself, because I can be very much a doormat. The irony is, I absolutely hate utilitarian ethics (more happiness than unhappiness = good and ethical action) because of how it ignores minority rights, but I'm perfectly okay with using it to justify my own suffering. Wow, I really need therapy.

I am selfish, in that I try to live for my own rational long-term interests. I don't want to sacrifice my life or my judgment to anybody else, and I don't want anybody else sacrificing himself for me. The world would be a lot better off if all human relationships were purely voluntary and mutually beneficial, rather than based on force and the sacrifice of one party or the other.

Now, from my point of view it's obviously in my own rational long-term interest to be kind, decent, honest, generous, understanding, and devoted to my family. So I try to be all those things too.

I don't remember being called selfish or anything similar, but somehow I think of myself that way. Even though I go out of my way frequently to help other people in small and big and sometimes huge ways, often with little or no thanks (they often don't even realize they are putting me out for what I am doing for them, or how hard it is), but as soon as I don't want to do something for someone else, my first impulse is that I am being selfish. So often I do it anyway so as not to feel selfish. I need to learn some boundaries. And to figure out why I assume this, so I can deal with the feelings constructively.

This is an interesting topic to explore (and timely for me).

In my experience when people tell you you're selfish it can often be justify their own selfishness.

i.e. if you don't give into their selfish demands they say you're selfish.