From the author: Selfishness is considered a vice, but is it so? Surely everyone has asked themselves this question or questions - “how does it happen that we want one thing, but sometimes we do and act completely wrong? Why do we very often live a life that we don’t want to live and, in fact, circumstances decide for us what we do, and much of what happens to us is contrary to our own desires?” Our society has taught us to never think about it. why this happens to us, very often we try to rely on other people, on their opinion, on their help, on their care and much more, and over time it begins to become a habit. Naturally, in our world we cannot help but interact with people, we live very densely in cities, we constantly communicate, and our whole life depends on how well and correctly we know how to communicate with people - this is all natural and there is no escape from it, because people in the world are divided into two halves - those who need something from you and those who need you. Let's try to think about what prevents you from becoming a strong, harmonious person, and what obstacles usually arise in our lives? What is stopping you from becoming independent, becoming who you want to become, and doing what you want? What or who is stopping us? Paradoxical as it may sound, the very first obstacle is our closest people, relatives, friends and others. Being in close proximity to us, our loved ones sometimes consciously, and sometimes not consciously, so to speak, “with the best intentions,” make us dependent on them. Over time, we become dependent on the opinions of our loved ones, we begin to shift responsibility from ourselves to others, and thereby we begin to depend on outside opinions and gradually lose independence. This is actually true, and the situation is even worse, since the methods of education in our society make us very dependent on everyone around us, the people. And we cannot avoid the influence of society, because... how we live among people and therefore naturally, we depend on them in any case. And be that as it may, they project their desires, their needs onto us, and therefore it is impossible, while in contact with people, to play “one goal” all the time. Why am I saying all this? Do you think a person who doesn’t think about himself, doesn’t think about his personal desires, his personal goals, can achieve anything in life? To become more or less someone, really, who you wanted to become? The wording here is the tenth thing. Is this possible if he listens only to other people's advice, other people's thoughts, other people's desires, and fulfills them. Will he then be able to achieve what he wants, directly for himself? Ask yourself this question and analyze your life. How do you live and whose desires do you fulfill in this life? And how much time do you have left for yourself, personally for yourself, personally for your desires, personally for your needs? Of course, living in society, we are forced to perform certain functions, certain laws that exist here. But! Society has taught us so much at one time that we must first do something for him, and then only you. After all, it benefits him. What happens? Who benefits from this? This is beneficial to everyone except the person himself; we are limited in all sorts of freedoms, and we are already so accustomed to this that we believe that this is how it should be. Think about it, look around, is this really so? Think about it - what exactly do you need? What do you want in this life for yourself? Yes, you have to go to work, yes, it’s natural, because you need to have money, you need to feed your family, you need to support and raise children. But the question is: is this the right job? Am I doing what I wanted to do, and why did I end up there? Why did I end up in this particular job? Do I love my job? There are a lot of questions, and if you start to understand them little by little, then I think that you can discover a lot of interesting things for yourself. And everyone can remember thisIt’s a wonderful state when you, studying at school in the 5th - 6th grade, hear an announcement that your last two lessons at school have been canceled. You go outside, the sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day and you still have 2 extra hours and you run for a walk with friends to some favorite place. I think everyone knows this state, and it is very joyful, very pleasant. When everything is good in your soul, when your soul is pleasant, and that’s... happiness. Therefore, think, think about yourself, about your life. Is that what you are doing in it, is it what you want and what you need? I urge you to look back at yourself, look inside yourself and understand what you want, who you are, why you live? Not to be bio-robots in this machine called the state or the world, or whatever you want to call it, its tasks are completely different, they do not correspond to our tasks. Its tasks are to perform its functions so that we are cogs and screwed in as best as possible. Naturally, the task of any state, any organization is to ensure that there is discipline and order in it, this is normal, this is correct. But at the same time, we must not forget what place we have determined for ourselves, and what we want for ourselves. The principle that I want to name is a very effective mechanism, applying which you will be the real master in your life, it sounds like this - it is sound, reasonable egoism. I have been applying this principle for some time in my life. I have become more relaxed about many things that used to bother me, that used to cause me discomfort and inconvenience. Just try everything on yourself. Do you need it? Think about something, whether you need it or not. You watch something on TV, it starts to grab you, but all this has been done on purpose, for the last fifteen years, look what is happening with television, what is pouring on us from there. This This is clearly not positive information, it only leads to depression, discomfort, and people have absolutely no feeling of some kind of happy future - there is nothing. Look at what is pouring on us from the screens: only murders, only negativity, only some kind of hopelessness. That is, information that is not at all impressive, does not evoke any positive feelings. So look at it and don't pay attention to it. After all, this is done on purpose so that everyone is in such a semi-depressed state, so that it would be easier to control them. Look around, maybe some of you have never thought about this, you’ve simply never realized it, but after all in real life this is how it happens. Why do many people walk around like this - semi... somehow incomprehensible, they have no desires, many completely lose interest in life. And look at those people whom we envy a little, and what we, in principle, would probably like to be. Look how they live, how they think, what they do, how they relate to many things. So who is an egoist? First of all, an egoist is a person who knows what he himself wants. If you don't have any insight into what you want, trust that someone else does. That is, if you yourself don’t know what you want, then someone else knows it for you. What he wants for you. That's all. And our whole life is built on this. It’s just that in different contexts, in different keys, it works completely differently. What’s bad about it if you yourself are happy, think about it, we think that selfishness is bad, of course, everything is for yourself, rowing everything for yourself, this is from Soviet times. Here he is so and so, here he is rows everything for himself. But! Think about it and reject these dogmas, why did all this happen? Because there were other principles, then there was a different policy, then everyone was in the same pot, everything... Yes, there was also a good, sound principle, but now these things no longer work. And in those days there were selfish people, and in those times there were rednecks , which... do not confuse selfishness and redneckness, these are completely different things. An egoist is a person who lives more by his own internal principles. I personally mean exactly this by this principle. Who is thishe’s a redneck, no one needs a long explanation, he’s just a greedy, unprincipled person. Based on reasonable egoism, it is much easier to build your life. You yourself will be happy when you know what you want for yourself, what you want for your... yes, for yourself, you will be a happy person yourself, you will make everyone around you your loved ones happy. Note, if you, being in this situation, evaluate how you live, what is happening around you: if you are unhappy, if you feel bad, does this make your loved ones feel good? And if you are happy, if you are content, you are your happiness, you share your energy and you endow your loved ones with this energy. The same material benefits that you will have. If you earn good money, if you live in abundance, then your family will live in abundance. This is natural, this happens naturally. It’s just that our people are not interested in having a strong, independent society. Then it is very difficult to control it. Therefore, it is done in all sorts of ways so that with the help of all sorts of dogmas people’s brains are blocked, I apologize, forgive me for my, as they say now in such cases, for my French. Indeed, people’s brains really get stuck, and they say, let’s do this, this is bad, this is bad. No, it’s not bad, it’s bad – living is bad. This is bad, I think. And in order to become yourself, you just need to look around and understand what you want for yourself. That is, to be a reasonable egoist. Don’t be led by people, but live with your own head. Grandmothers and grandfathers probably told this to everyone, but we somehow perceived it all, interpreted it, maybe somehow wrong, incorrectly, believed that these were old wives’ tales, old wives' tales, but friends and relatives tell the truth. But think about whether they sincerely want something for you or whether they really, perhaps, also have some plans for you, everything is quite possible. Therefore, I don’t know here, it’s absolutely impossible to rule out anything. Look around and feel, just analyze the situation, is everything really as you think? Is this what you want, is this what you are doing? Are you really doing what they want you to do? Do you live according to orders, or do you live your own life? Because sometimes, indeed, we are very well manipulated, and we don’t even notice it, and we think that this is in the order of things. But often we are simply blatantly manipulated. So let's call a spade a spade. What is communication? What is communication? This is manipulation. That is, if one person wants something from another, he comes and manipulates. All! Call it what you want, call it manipulation, call it communication, changing the places of the terms does not change the sum, the result is important. And how to achieve it is no longer important either, so, in fact, once again I urge you to think and understand who you are, what you are and why. This is a kind of cry from the soul, so I urge you to simply re-evaluate yourself a little, look around, evaluate your life, look at how you make decisions, whether this is your decision, whether this is the life you want to live. And give yourself an honest answer, and if you start to be dissatisfied with something, you start to dislike something, please apply this principle that I’m talking about - the principle of healthy egoism, since only it and only thanks to it can you achieve exactly your own, your goals, because only you know about them. Your goals are only your goals. Your life is only your life. This does not mean that you should not take into account the interests of those living next to you, it does not mean at all. You just need to organize your life in such a way that your interests are not infringed and the interests of others are taken into account. This is where the talent and art of being a successful and happy person lies. And this is exactly what our course will be devoted to. How, taking into account your interests, live in such a way as to take into account the interests of others and be a harmonious person, complete, strong, and the way you want to be. I believe that the principle of healthy egoism is the most