When Selfishness Turns Into Selflessness

Are people selfish by nature? If so, is there anything we can do about it? A different perspective on selfishness.

Some people believe humans are selfish by nature. According to this theory, everything we do is ultimately motivated by selfishness, even the acts that are classified as ‘selfless’ by society. Before we go any further, let me make a distinction between two different ways of understanding this concept: in everyday speech, ‘being selfish’ has a negative connotation, often meaning to ignore others people’s needs in order to satisfy your own.

However, from a psychological point of view, ‘selfishness’ simply means that, as a species, we are self-centred beings, therefore we find it humanly impossible to ignore the voice of the self. We perceive the world via our senses. No matter how hard we try, we cannot physically become somebody else. Even when we share other people's thoughts or ideas, we still see the world through our own eyes and filter reality through our own emotions.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that even the good things we do for others can be traced back to a deep selfish motivation. We help someone in distress because the sight of suffering causes us physical and psychological discomfort or simply because we prefer to see people happy and smiling. We make charitable acts because it makes us feel good with ourselves or because we want to pay for something we have done in the past. It is a more ‘refined’ form of selfishness and it takes some subtlety to recognize it, but in the end that’s what it is.

Selfishness in this context is not a negative concept. In fact, it is closer to selflessness that we can imagine. It’s just a question of choosing how to use it. We all have a lot to give and a tremendous potential for the good. All we have to do is focus on the positive side of the self and find the things that can make both us and those around us better, happier and stronger. If we train ourselves to rejoice in the good we do, our selfishness becomes our selflessness.

People Are Beautiful

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. Train your eyes to recognize the hidden beauty that makes every person special and unique.

It is an exercise I've tried time and time again and it always leaves me with a positive feeling of hope and comfort. Try to imagine what a person would look like in a perfect world, in a world free from old age, disease or deformity. Try to see that person just as he or she was designed by God in the first moment of creation, when everything was at its best and the worm of decay hasn’t started its destructive work yet.

Rather than seeing a person as the result of external circumstances, try to visualize their ideal prototype, to see them as they would be if none of those circumstances had occurred. Imagine what that person would look like in an ideal world. No wrinkles, no overweight, no scars, no makeup, no tiredness, no worries in their eyes.

You will notice that with some persons it's very easy. With others, it takes a bit of effort and imagination. That is because some people are closer to their prototype than others. Some will make the task almost impossible, while others are so close to their natural unaltered charm that imagination has to play a minimum role.

Discovering the beauty behind any makeup and decay - the essence behind appearance - is relaxing and therapeutic. It's like filtering everything and everyone through your own conscience and what remains is that little something that makes every person beautiful and unique – the sparkle of life, the real thing, their evasive but true spiritual profile.

Sometimes you have very little to work with. You have to recreate that image, like an artist, out of bits and fragments: a trembling smile, a soft look on somebody's face, a sparkle in their eyes. Any of these isolated elements can become a key to that person's beauty shining from inside.

My own experience has taught me that it helps if you have a brief glance at a person, then turn your eyes away and focus on the image printed on your retina. The features become sweeter, the lines softer, and you can visualize a sort of aura that you miss when you look squarely into that person's face.

In a way you restore something reality has stolen. You put back a softness often lost in too much detail. It's an artistic work, like that of a great painter trying to capture the essence of the human soul on canvas. Only this time the canvas is your mind.

The Importance Of Developing A Flexible Mind

Why it is important to develop a flexible mind and how you can attain this goal by aiming towards spiritual maturity.

If there's one thing life has taught me, it's that we have a lot to learn from the elastic: the more flexible you are, the less chances you have to break. When you can stretch and bend, you are more likely to resist the shocks than when you are rigid. Flexibility is one of the most important human qualities and one of the basic keywords for survival. It is what we call in common terms the power to adapt to the unexpected and adverse circumstances. Life is full of challenges that we cannot meet with a rigid heart and mind.

Some people have a natural inclination to being flexible. Without a doubt, they are the lucky ones. Others struggle to learn it after they’ve realized how important it is. And there is a third category of people who never learn and never understand. The second category deserves our admiration the most. These are often people who have to fight their natural drives and tendencies and engage in a constant battle with the self. The battle wears them out for a while but they come out stronger and spiritually enriched.

Even if nature hasn’t blessed you with a flexible mind, you can still develop it as you reach spiritual maturity. The ability to achieve spiritual growth is man's weapon against pure instinct and a way to silence the 'call of the wild' coming from within. Animals have the power to adapt, too. They possess instincts that can help them survive in a tough and unfriendly environment. But it is only man who can achieve this goal by exploring new realms of the spirit and new dimensions of the thought. It is only man who can pass beyond his tiny world of 'here and now' into the vast universe of unexplored possibilities and mysteries untold. Man is the only animal who realizes it is an animal and longs to be more.

You may ask: what does all this have to do with flexibility? The answer is: a lot. The more spiritually mature you are, the more flexible you become because your world becomes larger and larger. Life does no longer feel like a tight collar against your neck. You are no longer threatened by the dangerous and the unexpected, because your whole perspective on them has changed. There is no dangerous and no unexpected, only experiences that can make you stronger by taking you one step further on your journey to the ultimate reality.

Judging People - Arrogance or Ignorance?

Is judging others a proof that we are missing something somewhere along the line?

So often we make judgements on people, stating that 'X is better than Y', 'Y is smarter than Z' and 'Z is nicer than T'. We assume that we know enough to decide who is good and who is bad. We take it for granted that we have the right to compare and give the final verdict. We are convinced in our own little minds of our own little truths and never hesitate to let others know of what we believe. There is a sort of arrogance in our habit of judging people that can become quite annoying. But is it only arrogance or does ignorance play a role as well?

What we don't know and we don't even bother to find out is that Y, who is so bad according to our judgements, has much more to struggle against than X, whom we appreciate as good. We often ignore the three main factors contributing to human personality: heredity, environment and education. Perhaps 'being good' is a natural gift for X, while Y has to make double efforts to achieve the same goal. Maybe if Y had been born with X's advantages, he would have done much better. But who really knows?

The point I’m trying to make is that it's very dangerous to make judgements. The quality of our lives would increase so much if we stopped this silly judging game and we became aware of our own ignorance. Experience has taught me that sooner or later I'll do the same things I judged and hated in others. Every time I thought I was better than somebody, I ended up in circumstances that made me act the same, or even worse, than that person.

Life can be very treacherous, and so can be the human mind. Some borders are almost invisible and we can cross a bridge in as little as an instant without even realizing we’ve done it. We can become the opposite of what we are in a mere second, we can go from being normal to being insane and from deep meaning to complete and utter absurdity. We can lose everything or gain everything in the time it takes a butterfly to flap its wings.

Life is a gift, indeed, but so often it is like giving a car to a child or to somebody who hasn’t got a driving license. So many times we live it without being aware of its most basic rules. Or we think we know the rules but when it comes to facing a real challenge, we realize in fact we know nothing. The other driver we judge - our fellow being, our neighbour - could be simply caught in a bigger traffic jam or drive a car that is less powerful than ours.

Before giving in to the natural temptation of judging people, we should make an effort to learn the truth about ourselves, to find our own limitations and deal with them. Only when we realize how hard it is to be how this world expects us to be and how pointless it is to try and please everybody, we can appreciate what others are doing and the effort they are putting into things.

10 Facts That Can Increase Your Self-Esteem

Some of these statements might sound a bit philosophical but at a closer look, you’ll find they are very real. Life is a fascinating journey and the ultimate goal of any journey is learning and gaining experience. Don’t let your negative feelings keep you away from contemplating the great spectacle of life.

1. You are unique in history. There wasn’t and there’s never going to be another you. You are as unique as any great figure humanity has ever boasted with.

2. You are beautiful. People often used the wrong criteria to judge beauty. They are influenced by mass media and tend to forget what beauty is all about. Despite their many mistakes and failures, people are beautiful. Humanity is a strange race, fascinating in its fragility and you are part of it.

3. Everything you do is important. If you feel you haven’t achieved enough in your life, remember the butterfly effect. You will never know what you really achieved in the grand scheme of things and how much your most insignificant action has changed the world.

4. You are a survivor. You came into this world as a helpless baby, you struggled through the first confusing years, with so much to learn, so much to overcome. Yet you survived through all the struggles. And here you are now, reading this article on the Internet, which is more than many people can say.

5. You can read. We tend to take some things for granted and the ability to read and write is definitely one of them. You are intelligent enough to look at some weird signs that mean nothing in themselves and see a whole world of concepts and ideas. In some ages, that would have turned you into a symbol of wisdom, one of the few chosen ones.

6. You are complex. Everything you’ve ever heard, seen or felt, all the experiences you’ve been through are recorded by your brain. You are like a huge computer loaded with lots of information. Most often you are not even aware of it. But if you saw yourself from the outside and realized how complex you are, you would say a big “wow”.

7. You are rich. Think of a person you love dearly. Now think of three things you could give that person to make him or her happy. If you have found three things to give, you are very rich. If you have found only one, you are still richer than you think. Even if you can’t think of anything to give, the very fact that you thought about a person you love makes you rich, because you possess the most precious treasure a being can have - the capacity to love.

8. You are more. No matter how well you think you know yourself, there will be always things you are unaware of as far as your body, mind and soul are concerned. And as long as you don’t have the whole picture, you can’t judge yourself. It’s like judging someone you don’t know. Have confidence in the parts of yourself you haven’t discovered yet. There’s still so much to explore. One day you might be surprised.

9. You have patience. If you've got this far and haven’t abandoned this article yet, you are more patient than you think.

10. If you can understand and relate to these facts, you’ve got something else to be proud of: you have the ability to see beyond the obvious and to put things in perspective. Opening your eyes doesn’t mean only looking around, but also looking up and down, above, below, beneath and beyond.