Being Selfish Is A Good Thing
Everyone is selfish.
You can’t say that all those hard-working military members and veterans are selfish, or even doctors on the front-lines of the Carnivorous Outbreak, and the firefighters and police officers dedicating their careers to serve other people. They’re not selfish, they’re selfless.
But let's consider the term Selfish first.
The term describes a person’s concern for their interest and their interest only, taking stock in only what they want to achieve. With that in mind, couldn’t you say that all those people described above, who feel satisfied with serving other people and have chosen that career for themselves, are selfish too?
I can state with full honesty that I am selfish in all of my pursuits. My dream is to become a writer and I always want to achieve perfection with my words. Then again, in any endeavor, who doesn’t want perfection? Should I feel bad for being committed to that goal?
The word selfish has this negative connotation everywhere, and with it carries feelings of being ego-centric and shameful. However, as soon as we are brought into this world, human beings have this inherent drive to gain and gain what we want. Because of this “bad word”, our society works around the word by replacing it with terms like, “mutual benefit”, or “survival instinct”, all to put a band-aid on the word selfish. We can always take that point of view, but underlying it is the common essential gene of all humans. Selfishness.
I like to think of selfishness as the constant threat of one’s investment into personal values and achievements. When you’re selfish about the things you aspire to do, you are motivated to do those things and are more driven to that destination of accomplishment.
It really isn’t that bad of a word, and I believe you and I are more selfish than we think.
Anybody could argue that a customer of a business value the product more than the money itself, and that the business values that money more than the product. It is a selfish situation, in which each party is getting what they want, and you and I do it every day.
Billions of people decorate shrine after shrine of their pictures, showing their life and what their identity is all about. We all do it. You post a picture of yourself and feel the slightest sense of rejuvenation and fulfillment from that first “like”. A lot of these people can be labeled as self-absorbed, or narcissistic, and that is plausible and fair. But where is the balance then? If those people are aspiring to share their pictures of themselves, isn’t that their way of just being selfish, which is something we all feel?
It is not something to mock or throw stones at, even if you don’t take part. It is the human drive to share ourselves with other humans. But where do we stop? Where’s the outlining difference between being selfless and being self-absorbed?
Let’s talk about Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher that advocated for being selfish to attain a more full and pure sense of the word selflessness.
Nietzsche claims that in order to achieve a happy life or state of mind, be selfish in that you create your own true meaning through pursuing those goals and aspirations. This is your happiness, the things that you consider being good or bad, no matter what anyone else thinks.
“Selflessness has no value either in heaven or on earth!”
What Nietzsche is arguing is that when we try to be selfless, we dilute ourselves because we are too busy worrying about other people. It makes sense because when you try to lead a selfless lifestyle; it becomes a burden and creates unnecessary stress, which is counter-intuitive to the argument that being selfless is achieving pure happiness.
Instead, when we are being selfish, we can show people what we care about. If we truly care about something and wanted to share it with others, we have to be selfish about it in order to imprint our values and create that meaning for others. In return, others will notice, which then shows the selfless act of sharing.
Don’t be afraid of the word selfish. Instead of trying to deny you’re selfish gene, embrace it. By being selfish, we are invested in the things we do. The writing you want to accomplish, the project you want to create, or the chase of finding that special person.
Remember to be selfish. Otherwise, you have diminished yourself to the selfishness of others.
