If wanting to do the very best I can at as many things I can is selfish, then I guess, yes I am selfish. However, let me share with you a frequently used, but very appropriate analogy. On an airplane, when the oxygen masks drop they tell you the immediate thing you need to do is put your oxygen mask on first and then help others. If you don't take care of yourself first, you will be useless to help others.
Analogy 2:
Let's think of it like a vehicle, you need to do the routine maintenance (exercise), quality fueling (eating right) and fluid changes (sleep) in order to keep the machine that is you running efficiently.
If you run low-quality fuel that the car isn't really designed to run on it won't be able to run well, the body works like that too. If you park your car all the time just not moving it much it can get what's referred to as Lot Rot, our bodies are designed to move and with neglect, you will lose the ability to do things you once could. That one is, literally, use it or lose it. If you don't change the fluids on your car it'll do fine for a little while, but with enough time, only bad things are going to happen. You can cut your sleep short for a little while, but do it enough, your performance is going to suffer. If your car breaks down, it's no good to you at all, in fact, it's not an inconvenience that you have to deal with. The same thing happens if you get ill from neglect, you won't be able to help anyone and in fact, you become a drain on others.
This happens in life too, and I can speak to this from a place of experience. After I got married and started to settle in to work life and married life, I was eating like junk, not sleeping enough and not exercising, because I was "too busy". My main hobby was watching TV. My work suffered because I was always tired and had constant brain fog. I didn't really want to do anything. This absolutely destroyed my health I just kept gaining weight and then eventually was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
The reason you need to do it is that keeping your body maintained is a force multiplier. When you are in good physical condition (not fitness model shape here) you will have more energy to work and have the stamina to concentrate for long bouts. If you are eating a healthy diet, you will be fueling your body and your brain so that you can think clearly during those long bouts. Thus you will be able to do better work and more of it. When you are done with work you will still have the capacity to live a good personal life. This is not about vanity, looking healthy is a nice side effect of being healthy, but it doesn't need to be the goal.
Stack on top of that good sleep habits. Yes, you will give up some time to get good sleep, but again this is where the quality of your output will far outweigh the quantity. Sleep is crucial to your brain and your body, this is not a secret, but it comes up over and over. So I will hammer on it over and over until everyone I know complains about having too much energy and too much clarity of thought. (If you have little kids, you have a harder road, but do what you can to get as high of quality sleep as you can.)
Now, I'm not going to tell you what to eat, what type of exercise to do, nor exactly how many hours to sleep. I will write posts later on different modalities of training and eating that I am a fan of, but I don't know what your preferences are. What I will tell you is that you need to find what works for you and DO IT!
The point of this is that you take care of yourself first so that you can take care of others better. It's not selfish, in fact, it's selfless.
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