How selfish must you be?
HOW SELFISH MUST YOU BE?
This is one topic I feel very deeply about. Having been in close contact with people who have interesting opinions about the same, after reading a lot of self improvement material, after experiencing a lot in life, I can probably convey what I think needs to be done in this aspect so that one leads life in a holistic way.
What is the point of living after all? According to me “That one is in the happiest possible state for the maximum number of moments”.Pardon me for digressing. Well, how selfish must you be? After finishing my masters in mathematics, I worked in a multinational and felt that there was absolutely NO meaning in what I was doing. My job was collections from credit card defaulters. So much for how perfect the job was for me. The company had a nice environment to work in. But like so many other organizations the work hours were very long and it hardly left any time for social and personal life. I used to spend a lot of time in the local court waiting for my turn to represent the company. During those times I could not but help thinking how much selfishness there was in the world.
Organizations take the cake for sure. All double standards. Targets set on a monthly or sometimes even a weekly basis, but pay raises done only annually. Time for coming into the office is fixed but no fixed time for leaving, to mention a few. Many a time work needing to be done even on holidays but no extra compensation for the same.
I do agree that they have their own rationale for their actions but what about us? We have one life after all. On one end of the spectrum you have this scenario. On the other end you have people sacrificing their whole lives not caring about their own welfare and serving others. One close relative of mine had early signs of anemia but made it a priority to donate blood on a regular basis. His brilliant logic was that god would take care of him and he owed something to society. It fills me with awe as to how some people think. What happened was that he got admitted to hospital and the doctor chided him severely for his foolish ways.
I am not against service to society and helping mankind. My take is that extreme altruism is no better or creditable than extreme selfishness. Both are mistakes. Wallace wattles (the author of “the science of getting rich”) put it superbly when he said that we live for the mind body and soul. For complete happiness and a complete life, every one of these is important.
Doing justice to the physical part of the body entails performing all those actions that give satisfaction and pleasure to the body without anything in excess. Things like exercise, food, clothing and sex. When we perform mental tasks that are highly stimulating and rejuvenating and make for a better life we engage the mind. Examples include reading wonderful books, solving problems, engaging in new creative ways to make life more exciting. And when we engage ourselves in serving humanity, operate from a place of love and enlighten ourselves in spiritual ways (to name a few) we enrich ourselves on the soul front.
The question being how selfish we must be is very easily answered. When we live for all the mind body and soul nothing of it in excess, we live a complete life and at the same time we are not guilty of being selfish. Obviously no ONE script can be written and told for everyone as their lives, aspirations and desires are astoundingly different. Just question yourself on the basis of what is written here? Are you feeling genuinely happy on all three fronts? If yes, no ones opinion really matters, if no, well you know which area of your life needs progress.
