When I was in middle school, I witnessed my older sister entering into what I perceived to be the most exciting, adventurous component of young adulthood—dating and relationships.

Our parents used to joke around that we weren’t allowed to date until we were 30, but my sister and I knew that there was some truth to this. Our parents didn’t want us to date until we were way older. But as we entered high school, they became more lenient and started to let us date. My mother would still tell us not to take things too seriously in our romantic relationships while my father would usually say, “You’re young. Just have fun!”

After awkward first dates, thinking I was going to end up marrying three different people and falling in love for the very first time, I started to realize why my parents discouraged dating so soon.

My last breakup was the hardest one to deal with because nothing necessarily bad led to the deterioration of the relationship. We were at different stages of our individual lives. I was going to San Diego State and just got an internship in a field where I could see myself starting a prosperous career in. I saw myself going to graduate school and fulfilling my dream of living in New York one day. He wasn’t on the same page, but for a while when we were together, I changed my plans and imagined us moving in together in San Diego after graduation and getting married.

But we didn’t have the same goals and our differentiating standpoints in life led to the demise of our relationship.

We couldn’t grow together, so we grew apart.

It wasn’t until the next day after my ex-boyfriend and I broke up that I realized that these were my “selfish years”—the years that my parents kept trying to teach my sister and me about so badly.

The times of our late teens, 20s, and even early 30s, are times for discovery and evolution. Our values and opinions are highly impressionable by others. It’s a little tough to know who you are when different parts of yourself are different each day. During our selfish years, we need to take the time to become acquainted with different parts of ourselves.

How are we expected to give our all to someone else in a relationship when we don’t even know what our “all” entails? How could someone fall in love with parts of us that we don’t even know yet?

How do we love someone when we haven’t wholly learned to love ourselves?

My revelation of the selfish years has also taught me that this is a time for personal growth. Relationships offer senses of routine, comfort, and stability. But constant routine, comfort, and stability lead to complacency. We’re holding ourselves back.

The selfish years offer us to challenge ourselves in all aspects of our lives. We challenge ourselves to take that job offer in Los Angeles, to change our major for a third time, to travel abroad in Spain for a semester, to take up rock climbing, to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. There is nothing, or no one, holding us back from the unlimited possibilities and opportunities that young adulthood offers.

When we’re children, we’re taught that it’s important to care about others and we’re encouraged to put our neighbors before ourselves. But somewhere along the line, we forget to tend to our own needs, wants, and desires. We’re so focused on and invested in our relationships with others that we barely know who we are. We’re too busy being a couple rather than two individuals. We compromise our aspirations and sacrifice our biggest dreams for our dream person.

You can’t find your perfect partner until you find yourself.

Dream big, have goals, and never compromise what you deserve. Take risks and welcome the idea of uncertainty. Remember that this is your life and you can live it any way you want to. Remember that sometimes it’s okay to be selfish.