(+++) ME FIRST

The Joy of Being Selfish. By Michelle Elman. Welbeck Publishing. $19.99.

     Selfishness, like stress, is much better in small doses than large ones. A certain degree of stress is motivating; indeed, it is arguable that without stress at some level, people would get little done, since they would not feel any particular impulse to accomplish things. In The Joy of Being Selfish, Michelle Elman argues pretty much the same thing where selfishness is concerned: being totally focused on yourself is overdoing things, but without a certain degree of looking out for Number One, Number One ends up somewhere around Number 276 when it comes to work, family, friendships, romance and more.

     The book’s title, though, is a bit of a misnomer. There is precious little in it about joy – a more-accurate title would have been “The Importance of Being Selfish.” An even-more-precise one would have been “The Importance of Boundaries.” The words “boundary” and “boundaries” are a near-constant refrain in Elman’s book: all five of the first chapter’s sections contain one word or the other; the three major book sections after the Introduction all include one word or the other in their titles; and there are six “boundaries” in a row in titles within the book’s fourth section, “Setting Boundaries in Different Contexts.” In fact, so pervasive is the “boundary” notion here that within sections whose titles contain “boundary” or “boundaries,” there are plenty of subsections using the words. For example, within “Boundaries in the Workplace” there are “Out-of-hours boundaries,” “Personal and professional boundaries with colleagues,” and “Setting boundaries with a boss.”

     Elman sets forth the connection between selfishness and boundaries early in the book: “Setting boundaries means saying, ‘I’m going to get my needs met and I’m not going to expect others to do it for me.’ If that’s selfish, then I’m selfish.” This formulation is a bit different from what readers are likely to expect when hearing the word “selfish,” but Elman stays true to her definition and explication. She may even be a little too true to it, using it to devise one of those self-help-book standards, an acronym encapsulating the book’s message. Here it is SELFISH, which includes Stories (stick to facts when something bothers you instead of trying to explain things away); Emotions (know which of yours a situation stirs up); Let go of conclusions (do not play out a difficult conversation in your head before it happens); Find [a] desired outcome (know what you are asking for); Initiate conversation (choose the right time for difficult talks); Set the boundary (it is your decision, not a joint one; it is up to the other person to accept it or not); Hold the boundary (if the distressing event recurs, establish a consequence and follow through on it).

     SELFISH may be a clever summation of Elman’s major points, but it is not a very useful guide to the specifics of what to do – there is just too much packed into the acronym, in too general a way, for it to be helpful in day-to-day life. The specific “text templates” near the end of the book are much more useful. They deal with specific emotionally fraught situations that readers may well have experienced or that are at least similar enough to ones they experienced so the suggested cogent, to-the-point replies can be easily adapted. Among the issues for which Elman offers suggested answers: “I think my friend is angry at me because they are not responding to my texts.” “I slept with a guy and ever since he has been replying slower and with shorter replies, and it’s making me feel bad.” “My boss raises his voice a lot.” “My partner makes more money than me [sic] and when she chooses a restaurant, it is normally out of my price range and it is creating a lot of financial pressure on me.” “My boss likes to micromanage me and constantly interrupts me for updates [and as a result] I submit work before I feel it is ready.”

     In each of these cases and other specifics she presents, Elman shows a way to put your own needs first – that is, to be selfish, to set a boundary – while remaining professional or emotionally engaged or whatever it makes sense to be in that particular circumstance. The section of proposed text messages builds on much of the book’s previous narrative. Elman does a particularly good job of illustrating and contrasting strong and weak boundaries of various types – material, physical, emotional, intellectual and sexual. Less useful are a series of overly simplistic and sometimes nitpicking formulations about the difficulties of setting boundaries (for instance, two separate possibilities are “you don’t know what you feel” and “you don’t know how to process what you feel”). Also of limited value are the typical self-help-book set of things to do to bring your life into conformity with the angle that Elman wants you to take. Thus, there is a “take action” page for lists of personal values involving career, love life and family & friends; a very short space (nine blank lines) for “writing out what you would have done differently” at times in your life when you tried unsuccessful to set boundaries; lists to be made “when you cut someone out of your life” of “red flags that I missed,” “the changes in the relationship that I did not notice,” and more; etc. Elman expects a good deal more work of her readers than her foundationally rather straightforward notions about boundary-setting really justify. Of course, it is possible just to skip the worksheets and read the narrative – and that is probably a better way to extract what is useful from The Joy of Being Selfish. A single one of Elman’s sentences really sums up the book: “Boundaries, and learning how to set them, are about setting the standard of how you want to be treated.” The process of doing this can be more complex than Elman lets on, and is more likely to be joyless than to offer joy: it is hard work unlearning long-established patterns of interaction and creating new ones, then adhering to them. However, as a basic, plainspoken guide to elements of interpersonal boundary-setting, Elman’s book can be a good starting point, if scarcely the last word.