The Ninth Principle of Self-love is to see that you must do everything altruists say you must do but the only difference is to have respect for yourself. This way you manage to retain the benefits of altruism and improve on it by putting in some egoism. Egoism is good and harmless. Even if neither altruism or egoism is perfect, we should go for egoism for egoism is the best of the two.
To practise self-love properly and to win the blessings it gives you have to do EVERYTHING you do because you love solely yourself. You do not help the sick man lying on the street because it is your duty. Duty is a dirty word. You do it because you want to prove that you are good and not to others but to yourself though the positive feedback from others will help you see your goodness better. In plain language, you do it to feel or at least think better about yourself though you already feel good about yourself. You do it to open up your powers to make yourself happy by having this reminder about how good you are. That is a good thing only as long as you are sure you will not feel bad about yourself if you fail to be good. If that happens get up and make amends straight away. If you know the secret of happiness, which is to realise that you don’t need anything but yourself, you will manage to keep a firm hold on your high regard for yourself. When others ask for help and they really need it then help them because you see it as an invitation from them to love yourself by improving yourself and for you to feel you are making a good difference in the world. Make everything you do a gift to yourself telling yourself that you love yourself and are open to the pleasure of happiness because everything you do is for your own pleasing anyway even if it is something you feel you can’t get out of doing but the only trouble is we keep forgetting how to draw the best feelings out of what we do. In other words, you do what good you do not for others but for you.
When I help a person because I like them and go to a lot of trouble for it people say I am unselfish. This is not true and they know it. Liking is a self-centred act. It means I get something out of helping them. That is what I am doing it for. Let me explain. Liking you means only that I get pleasure from you. It is not you I value but what I get out of you.
