Are More Humans Selfish or Selfless?
Lately I have been wondering, where do all the lonely people of world come from? How to do they become the lonely, lost souls I seem to see lingering around today? What went wrong along the way? And why do those people still seem to use any strength they have left to help a stranger in need, out?
My theory is that the loneliest of people are the kindest of souls. The people who are always tending to everyone else’s needs, always worrying about the well-being of another before themselves. In their home lives or even at work.
A detective for example: they are always on the job trying to mend the lives of families, ease the heartache by finding justice, there is no way as humans, (unless they are sociopaths) that they do not feel the pain of the families and even sometimes allow the unsolved cases to eat at them. I could see how the job could gradually take over their minds if they let it, changing them as people and without even realizing it they have no time or space in their heads to think about the things that used to excite them. Activities don’t seem as fun anymore, and even just sitting and relaxing with the family something they used to love could begin to make them stir-crazy.
I could also see how they could feel selfish feeling any joy from activities they once loved, knowing that there were families out there that would never be able to experience things like that with some of their loves ones because of other people’s selfish acts. They may not allow themselves to feel as much joy as they used to or maybe because of what they have witnessed, they simple can’t feel the same joy anymore. Maybe the world becomes darker for them, people look different, places aren’t the same, all looked at through a different eye.
Another one: doctors, specifically surgeons, always on the job, minds on that of their patients, tending to their physical needs and while, along the way their own needs gets pushed to the backburner and even in some cases I have seen, their relationships with their loved ones change dramatically. There is no longer time to give out the love that deserves to be given.
It is sad when a profession can take over the person you used to be, there are things that can not be unseen and sometimes the human mind isn’t strong enough to bounce back. And because of that, those people suffer and so do their loved ones. These people give up their own happiness and sometimes even sanity to help others.
There will always be those people who put everyone else before themselves as a instinct, to make sure everyone else in the room is content and comfortable before they themselves even sit down. Those people who are sharing the back of a three seater car with four people, and they intentionally squish themselves up against the side because everyone is complaining about being uncomfortable, then telling everyone they were fine, just so they knew that everyone else was okay.
With that kind of stuff I feel like it should almost be instinct for everyone to want to do what they can so that people are comfortable in whatever the situation is. Comfortable mentally, physically, emotionally, whatever the case may be. But I have learnt over the years with naive astonishment that there really were people out there who get pleasure in doing the exact opposite. Most people, actually that you will encounter will not give even the slightest care about a stranger, or even a friend or loved one. As a matter of fact, there are people out there that would go out of their way to intentionally hurt a stranger or a loved. Also, you could spend so much of your energy and time helping a person you thought cared to end up with getting backstabbed or screwed over somehow, because some people do not have remorse, do not feel at all for that matter, well at least that’s what it seemed like to me growing up. The amount of times I have been dumbfounded, and in an almost awe of the selfish people I have encountered, knowing that they truly didn’t see what was wrong with what they’re doing, is too high to count.
Stop worrying too much (easier said than done, I know)
I am still very naïve in many ways clearly, because selfish people is something that I have always questioned about the world, something I will never fully understand. For me it’s hard for me to even kill a spider in my room, I will catch it and let it free before killing it, so I will never understand how there are people out there who intentionally partake in physical harm of another person or even mental harm. Or the people who simply lacked human decency and morals.
I know how exhausting it is to always have your mind on the well-being of everyone else and seeming to be the only one in the room always doing so. Something as simple as being the only one who seems to care if the guests have a place to sit and are comfortable in their surroundings, while everyone else seems to sit there not even being aware of the situation because their mind goes to themselves before anyone else. When I was a kid I used to think these people were somehow faking it. Why is it that my mind was constantly thinking about if everyone was comfortable, having a good time, was content in their surroundings: the lighting, the temperature, the seating. I thought about how people were feeling and how I may be able to help them, I noticed things and cared about things that didn’t even exist in the other people’s minds around me. They were care free as I sat there racking my brain of everything I can do to make whatever the situation, better. I thought they were either faking it, because…. how?! Or that something was missing in their minds.
Even now, I go out of my way to do things for people at work before I leave my shift and I have been asked on multiple occasions “Kayley, isn’t your shift over? Why’re you still here?” I tell whoever it is that I am just getting a few more things done so the night goes smoother for everyone else. Most people look at me weird and say something along the lines of “Why do you even care, your shifts over.” I say it’s because I know what its like not to prepared for the night and it makes everything harder so I want to help out. I get more weird looks and people telling me that it won’t affect me because I’m going home so they don’t understand why I care. People actually have this attitude and its astonishing to me. But I’m learning slowly not to let it bother me because everyone is different and I can’t change the way everyone thinks but I can change how I let it affect me.
I know how depleting it feels to care so much about every little thing and every person, as your told not to worry so much and told to grow up and stop being a baby, and that no one cares about the things you care about, or you think too much and make life harder on yourself. It really is the loneliest feeling in the world.
I have always been the first person to say it doesn’t matter that other people choose to live their lives selfishly, that the pure hearted ones shouldn’t let it bother them, just keep killing people with kindness. But these days I say be a little selfish. You won’t survive in this all for one world unless you learn to sometimes put yourself first. I mean everyone else is looking out for them and most of the time that is solely all people care about at the end of the day: themselves and how things affect or benefit them, everyone else is background noise, a tool to their life. If you allow yourself to be just a tool in people’s lives but never do what YOU actually want for yourself, you’re going to end up miserable, lonely, confused, and more than likely find yourself in a sort of numbness or disassociation with the world.
Now, I am not saying go be a cold-hearted bitch and lose your big heart for good. We can’t allow people to suck the goodness out of us but we also can’t allow people to take advantage of it, because people like us will get used, will get walked over, and people like us will put all we got in, put our best self forward for somebody who ends up disgracing our name in the end out of spite or bitterness or whatever the case may be. A lot of people make it seem like they are doing what is in our best interests but most of the time the end goal is doing what is best for them.
No matter how much effort you put in, to a job or a relationship let’s say, in the end someone could still leave you for someone else or you could still get laid off or get a bad recommendation even after years of hard work. It might be because that owner wants you to work for him when he opens his new business therefore makes sure every company around town thinks you’re untrustworthy. You have close to no options so you go back to his company not knowing that his acts were for his own selfish reasons, to better his business. He never really cared about you progressing in your field, or about you being respected and making a good name for yourself. People may seem like they care about your progress but a lot of peoples actions are based solely off how it will affect them, as sad as it is most people do not care about you or your life.
Acceptance
Coming to terms with this was hard for me. When I realized that majority of people really do live selfish lives and see nothing wrong with it, I kind of retreated into myself for a bit. I closed myself off from the world because I wanted to be nowhere near these people. I was too sensitive and everything hit me too hard. I didn’t fit in well with this cruel world, I had no back bone to stand beside these people, I would be weak in comparison. Therefore, as sad and as unfortunate as it is, I had to learn to be selfish too in certain aspects of life if I wanted to fit in.
Considering the fact that there are probably only a select few who actually do whole-heartedly care about the affect they could have on people depending on the decisions they make, you need to learn to take most things with a grain of salt. To not become defensive any time someone tries to do something nice for you, but to at least have your guard up and question if someone’s action or words were really to benefit you, or if it was simply to help themselves in the long run.
It is good to know what kind of people you are associating with and who is worth going the extra mile for and who isn’t: the ones who would never go a mile for you let alone the extra one. Save your kindness for the one’s deserving of it, don’t hand it out to everyone because you will get to the point where you feel like there is none left after being let down time after time because you held onto the belief that maybe one day someone might return a favor or appreciate what you do. Get rid of those expectations. Don’t be harsh to people just don’t go out of your way and take up time in your schedule to help out someone who couldn’t care less about you.
Learn to trust yourself
It is also good to trust your instincts but to know that sometimes they could be wrong. Your best bet is to not hold too much expectations for people because a lot of the time they do let you down. Don’t let them let you down, if you have a bad instinct about someone, expect nothing less than them not coming through, so that if they don’t, there aren’t any disappointments.
Learn how to trust your gut and know when not to trust it. Gut instinct, or intuition, is your immediate understanding of something; your mind tells you there is no reason to think twice about it. Certain things we just seem to have this sixth sense and we simply know, other times we could be completely wrong. For example, you see a creepy guy giving you eyes on the other side of the street and he seems to have been getting closer to you by the minute, you instantly feel a gut instinct that this dude is bad news. Even if you are wrong, its best to follow your gut and get away from the creeper. Acting on that gut instinct only benefits you, but other times acting on an instinct can do the opposite. For example, avoiding a party because your gut tells you something embarrassing or shameful might be brought up. That may or may not happen, also getting a new job opportunity instead of your colleague may or may not happen at that party but you will never know because you psyched yourself out.
The more practice you have with trusting your intuition, the easier it becomes. You need to create a pattern database for yourself. The more you experience, the more people you encounter, the more information is being stored into your database so in future occasions you know how to best react and to best read these types of people. You need to have sufficient experience noticing and revising patterns in order to have built up a database that is unique to you. Following up and getting feedback on your intuitions helps you realize when your instinct was wrong, allowing you to be more knowledgeable in a similar future circumstance. You eventually will build up a gut instinct that can always turn to. Therefore you can gain a sense of trust with yourself and you will know who to involve in your circle, who you can count on, who you can’t trust, and who is worth going that extra mile for as well as who isn’t.
Don’t give up all hope on humanity, but just do not lose yourself trying to help everyone else, you are worthy of the same of sort of kindness you bring to other people and if you are not receiving it from the people you give it to, those aren’t your people and surrounding yourself with them will only drain you and allow misery into your life. Some people are selfish, some people do not seem to care about the well-being of others and that is never going to change. Find your kind of people, and things really do seem easier.
If you are interested in reading about a variety of different subjects such as mental health, inside the minds of disturbed artists, the importance of being an introvert, importance of body language and non-verbal communication, the importance of mental rehearsal and imagery, the power of our minds, mindfulness, metaphysics and the cosmic world and how all the great genius’ of the past have tapped into this power to achieve seeming miracles, addiction, abuse, the effects loneliness and so much more, please check out some of my other posts:
