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TIB Essay
I believe being selfish is not a bad thing, because humans are instinctively selfish. But for some reason, selfishness has a negative connotation to it. Being selfish is important, it’s what keeps us alive. Everything we do is motivated by reward. When I say selfish, what do I mean? I mean putting your own priorities over everyone else’s. I’m selfish and I’ll admit it. I’m selfish because I want the best in every situation, I want to ride shotgun when I’m not driving, I want the biggest slice, and I want the better-looking clothes. Is that really so bad? Everyone feels like that despite how much they deny it. How did I come up with this belief? Ironically, at a religious sermon.
A while back as I was waiting for prayer, with the usual large showing of people on Friday, a man was giving a speech. Usually before prayer, the mosque invites guest speakers to talk about Islam and their personal stories. This one speaker got my attention. He was a tall, skinny, African-American man who spoke with a strong and imposing voice; it would be impossible to not listen. He was talking about charity and good deeds. Just the way he spoke made you want to throw your money in the donation box. As the speech went along, he started to talk about generosity, giving charity, helping your fellow man, and all that jazz. Then he told us that God will reward us for our great deeds. Now let’s be clear, I’ve heard that phrase over a million times, it just never stuck with me. But for some reason I thought to myself “How selfish!” The only reason we do good things is to be rewarded for them. That’s why religious people give charity, that’s why we are suppose to “love thy neighbor”; because God approves. I’m not bashing religion in any sense; selfishness exists outside of religion as well.
I still had the conception that being selfish is a bad thing. I keep thinking to myself what is the point of being generous if you are doing it for the wrong reasons. When people donate money they should do it to help out those in need, not so they have a ticket into heaven. Then, I started branching out of religion. I realized that a lot of things humans do are selfish, even the minor things like cutting someone off in traffic. Everything we do is for something or for ourselves.
I was driving home from the mosque with my mom. She wasn’t thrilled with this new belief. I told her that I was convinced that nearly everything we do is motivated by our own wants. This can be taken from any example, from the suicidal kid to the philanthropist. The philanthropist may donate money because of his religious beliefs. But, my mother brought up a good argument about people who don’t have a religion. “What motivation is there for atheists to help someone?”
In response to her, if you want to do something you do it because you get something out of, whether it is “God’s approval” or something as small as a nice fuzzy feeling inside. That fuzzy feeling will come from anything. Some people donate to feel good about themselves or want to feel better. There is always the argument that people are just nice. Well sure, they like helping people out, but they are still selfish like everyone else. That person will not help someone if helping someone conflicts with his or her own interest. They can help someone, as long as it doesn’t stop them from achieving what they want to.
It’s a complicated idea that being selfish is not bad. It’s a concept that is hard to wrap your head around. Hell, it was difficult for me to try to understand it. But some people won’t admit that humans are instinctively selfish, no matter how many examples I give them. So that’s not what I am going to do. Rather I’m going to explore selfishness even more and also how it may be a good thing for someone else. This can be seen through an experience I had in 11th grade.
At this point of my life I started to have more and more doubts about religion, and didn’t have the epiphany on selfishness yet. I was on my way home from school and took the usual route. I got off of I-66 and was glad to be out of that traffic-jammed mess. I approached the red light coming off the highway and saw a tall white homeless lady, covered in dirt and in ragged clothes, standing on the corner. Next to her she had a garbage bag and a shopping cart filled with miscellaneous things. She carried a cardboard sign that read “Homeless and Hungry. Please help!” I drove away. Day after day, I kept seeing the same lady with the same sign, standing there. The sight kept eating away at me because she kept getting sicker and weaker. Then a few weeks later, I approached the same red light. The lady was gone. I don’t know where she went, and haven’t seen her since that day, don’t know what happened to her. I felt terrible because I knew I could have at least tried to help, but did nothing in the end. The next day I saw a black man with a white t-shirt, jeans, and in crutches, wearing a Washington Redskins hat. He was holding a sign in one hand that said “WARTIME VETERAN, ALWAYS LOYAL” and a cup in the other. I dropped a dollar and a couple of cents into his jar. Suddenly, that feeling that was eating away at me got slightly better.
There was one reason to give that man money. I was on the verge of throwing away religion from my life completely, so religion wasn’t the reason. The reason I did it was because watching that lady deteriorate in front of me daily made me feel so guilty, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something to get that pressure off of me. Giving to that man lightened the load and it help me deal with it. I felt sorry for that man and it made me feel better. This is applicable to everyone, not only me. How many times have you seen something on the news about kids in Africa starving or the destruction of Haiti? Unless you’re an emotionless human, you will get some emotional response from it. Being selfish is not bad; we are selfish whether we like it or not, and sometimes our selfish actions can help others out. Even though I was thinking purely for myself, I helped that homeless man. Giving to others, or helping others is what keeps the world moving. We learn sharing in kindergarten, and we still need to be using those values today. We don’t share always because we want to; we share sometimes because we have to. In a broader sense, if we do not give to each other, the world will go to shit.
Hopefully you don’t view this as consent to be assholes. This is not what this essay is about. Look at this essay as a different perspective on selfishness. It’s not bad to be selfish, because we are all selfish. We all do things for ourselves or for something. I’m a selfish person. Nearly everything I do is for myself in someway, even if I don’t know it. Sometimes that can be a good thing. We are all selfish, and this is what I believe.
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I got an A on this paper, and it was actually really interesting to write.
So...some thoughts on this!! sorry if its not really what you´re looking for...
ReplyDeletei definitely agree that there are not many people in the world (or maybe ANY people) who would help someone in need and truly say they are getting nothing out of it for themselves. i mean, here i am volunteering in ecuador but i came here hoping to improve my spanish, see the country, gain new experiences, grow as a person, whatever. all that stuff is for me even though my primary reason for being here is technically to improve other people´s lives.
however, i think there are definitly different kinds of selfishness. the "biggest slice, nicest stuff" kind of selfishness is natural and undeniable, but i dont know if that makes it okay. it´s something i think people have to learn to hide even if they feel it (which i agree that we all do) because if we all acted selfishly in that way, this world would probably be pretty shitty. that kind of selfishness deserves a pretty negative connotation in my opinion. but what you talked about--whatever made you want to help the homeless man on the highway--is for sure really good.
i am an atheist, but i definitely still feel like a lot of the reason i do "good things" is to get approval from others--just maybe not god--and to feel better about myself. i feel guilty about that sometimes, and i used to try not to let my own emotions affect my decisons to do community service. i thought i wasn´t really doing CHARITY if i was getting anything at all out of it, even just a good feeling.
but about a year ago, someone said to me "making yourself miserable won´t make the world a better place." and that was when i started to realize that feeling good when other people feel good is a pretty healthy thing. having that kind of selfishness makes you a good person, i think. i definitely agree that EVERYONE is selfish-- it´s just what kind of selfishness you show the world that determines your character.
the.end. (congratulations on the good grade, btw!)
Honestly being selfish is what keeps the world going round and round. There will be people who give charity because of religion because some people need that type of security in their lives or they will go crazy. Others give because of that feeling inside. Others give for whatever reason or a combination of reasons.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird because we have this misconception that being selfish is bad, when in reality we are all selfish. It's just hard to thinking about the word selfish without thinking of the negative connotation that comes along with it. And I agree with you- "it´s just what kind of selfishness you show the world that determines your character."
Thanks, I got a few looks when I was presenting this afront of my class. And they probably think I'm a dick.