Self/Lifestyle/Help yourself grow
Two Awesome Forces Of Human Nature
Self-interest helps us grow and find a purpose to care for others.
Imagine giving your lung to your spouse. What happens next?
As an individual, it is automatic to look for yourself first in a group photo. And many people turn their heads when a baby screams in a restaurant.
Two things that drive humans are self-interest and caring for others.
1. Self-interest
Some people equate self-interest to outright selfishness. I often hear this when people accuse their loved ones of selfishness or self-centeredness. So, I’m always curious to find out what they mean by selfishness.
Star’s story
Star complained about her mother’s selfishness because she refused to pick her up from the airport at 6 am. She lamented, “My mom is selfish.” I understood and questioned, “Yeah, she is selfish; what happened this time.” “She refused to pick me up from the airport,” she replied. Why? Because her mother works in the city, and her train leaves the station at 7.39 am.
Star’s mother is not selfish but sincere with herself and her daughter. The mother is protecting her self-interest and modeling healthy behavior toward her daughter. She starts work at 8.30 am and must go to work.
Self-interest is like your first name; you cannot share it with your twins, family members, or friends.
The above photo shows self-interest, but sometimes, we allow our emotions to work against our profit.
Self-reflection
Do we remove our shirts and give them to a shirtless person in the supermarket?
I cannot take off my only mask and give it to anyone without one. It is human nature for us to act in self-defense when danger occurs. Be healthy and embrace self-interest.
2. Caring for others
As humans, we’re wired to care for one another. Human nature rarely complicates things. For example, a pregnant woman must live to save her fetus’s life.
How can we successfully care for one another? First, give freely and happily what we have. That is, we give to others with purpose and enjoyment rather than duty and obligation.
When we give because we feel pressured to, it often builds resentment and bitterness or what Mary calls her family Christmas gift-giving, “A business transaction.”
Genuinely self-interest and caring for others aren’t complicated. Both go hand in hand if done in proper order.
Note: Duty and obligation to give can work, too, in a few instances.
Ansa’s story
Ansa graduated from college and got a lucrative job offer thousands of miles away from her parents. She had interned and trained for a job for three summers while in college. Then, her father died a few weeks before her start date, and she declined the position to help her mother, Nancy, deal with the loss.
Six years passed, and her mother met a man on a dating site and got married. They moved to the same city where Ansa had a job offer. Nancy sold her house because her daughter couldn’t afford to maintain the house with her income.
Ansa felt cheated because her mother sold her house and moved out of town without her.
What do you think of Ansa and her mom?
Self-reflection
How do you treat yourself?
Self-suppression can make some people prefer doing nice things for others and bad things for themselves. It can be unconscious behavior and symptoms of people pleasing.
I can’t buy a first-class plane ticket for my healthy friend and get economy for myself. Would you?
Let’s see
If you take proper care of yourself, you’ll likely be excited to do more for others.
Oprah gives people love and her favorite things. Was she doing gift-giving with meaning three decades ago?
Bill Gates is on a mission to change the world. I admire him and his organization's work on malaria in Africa. But how was his charity thirty years ago?
These two world changers make more of an impact now than they did three decades ago.
They inspire me!
How do you care for yourself and others?
Help yourself grow.
Part of this story was first published on another website.
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