Back again, after a long break! Both my time and brain have been some what occupied. My time is mostly spent on getting my freelance lifestyle to run smoothly. My mind on the other hand is like a chaotic web of ideas and thoughts. For the most part I've been thinking about my recent interactions with other people. One question keeps reverberating in my head: “How selfish am I?”
In my opinion selfishness comes from our instinct to fulfill our basic needs. Our selfless ways most likely originates from our emotional need to feel connected with others. To me this clarifies the 'give and take' nature of society. We usually take, until our needs are met and only then are we willing to give to others.
Considering some of my recent experiences involving 'give and take’ makes me understand the usefulness of money. For example, if I cook dinner for you and give you my old TV, what is the 'value' to you? Now consider we were friends, coworkers, or just neighbors. What if you were sick? Depending on the situation, the 'value' is completely different. Also, depending on the situation, I might be satisfied with a "thank you" or expect something more in return.
Although, both selfishness and money bother me, I'm slowly learning to accept them as part of life. This brings me to the quote I mention above, which comes from a book I can relate to and recommend. Once a person has enough wealth to support both himself/herself, what is left to do? Society propels us to believe that more wealth means being more successful at life. Why?
How about, I suggest an alternative! Measure your life's success based on how many people you help push towards their dream. If you're reading this post, you're likely in a privileged country and earn enough money to support yourself. Thus, I urge you to spend an hour or more to help someone you know, who could use a push towards their dream.
This earth is our home and we all want humanity to thrive! One person has 20 million and the other pushed 200 people towards their dream, who was more successful at promoting humanity? Your choice!
Haha, funny thing about selfishness. Most of us don't even get to the part of helping others towards their dream, because we feel (be it "objectively" true or not) that we don't achieve our own. And we are the priority to ourselves, of course. This "of course" should not always be so obvious, but I will leave this to another discussion. So we chase after our own dream, always trying to better ourselves, occasionally letting a life partner or perhaps a friend so close, that we help them. Like, really help, not just when we're having a good time. But that's about it, most don't even dream of helping (nudging) 200 people towards their dream!
ReplyDeleteMost would altruistically say, that it's a no-brainer: "help people toward their dream!" But I'm not so sure, even about myself. When money would be tight, most everyone would turn down even a friend in need in order to take care of themselves. Some to a higher degree than others - meaning that the limit of when this happens is 100$ on the bank account for some, but 100.000.000$ for others. That's just my unfiltered thought train...
Your thought train is always welcome! For me 'nudging' someone towards their dream can be a small deed. For example, you 'nudged' me to writing this blog, which will help towards my dream. Think of 'nudging' as small good deeds or even being supportive. Do 2 small deeds per month and in less than 10 year, you'll have 'nudged' 200 people toward their dream! How does that sound?
ReplyDeleteYes, I should have made a clear distinction between the basic needs limit and dream limit. Think once the basic needs limit is met, we become more willing to be altruistic. It's difficult to convince people that they already fulfilled their basic needs. Perhaps to promote altruism, we have to teach people to be happy with what they have!
Also, how do people know when they reached their 'dream'? I guess often dreams are vague and unrealistic for a single person. Would be great if people learned how to make dreams that they could actually fulfill! This is something that I myself am still figuring out.