SELF(The Journey to being truly Altruistic).

 

So one night last week while trying desperately to keep myself awake, I had a pep talk with myself (more like a TED talk, because I was there acting like there was a live audience in front of me and being so Zen). 

Well in my usual Pep/TED talk fashion I was mouthing the words ever so peacefully, a skill I wish I have mastered in life, you see I fancy a Zen outlook, an understanding personality and a calm voice but like most things I fancy these are all still a work in progress, but you can say I am working. 

In like manner my talk focused on something I am also working to be, put quite simply “A genuinely Altruistic Person”.  

Altruistic (simply meaning unselfish), I am trying my best in all ways to be as unselfish as possible.

So apart from trying to stay awake this started from hearing/seeing the phrase “focus on your own happiness” a lot more in the past week and something about that statement rings the wrong alarms in my head.  

I truly get distressed when I see that statement or it's likes, “it's all about your own happiness” etc. etc. because we have subconsciously become so absorbed in “SELF” in our own individual satisfaction, peace, fulfilling so selfishly our own desires and forgetting that the we are all on a journey with others and that's not an ignorable truth.   

These statements, the public applaud for it and actual perpetuating of this “untruth” makes me uncomfortable, truth is once I was sold on same ideologies and it hurt more than it healed. In my imaginary talk session, I was explaining the way I saw the world through a wayfarers' eyes and here it goes, each of us is on a journey, the beginning and end of which none of us truly knows(another debate for another day), our parents and people older are the wayfarers who've cleared the path for us to arrive-”the people before us”, we and our current acquaintances, spouses, colleagues, neighbors are wayfarers who are seeking just as we are-”fellow travelers”, our children and the generations to come are the ones we are directly or indirectly paving the road for to continue on this journey we have started-”the ones after us”. 

I hope I have not lost you there but the whole point is, I see our interactions in this world in three parts, we are constantly in relation with “the people before us”, “fellow travelers' and creating a future for “the ones after us”.  

Everything we are, everything we do affects in one way or another at least one of these three sets of people, there's absolutely no action (or inaction) that is in isolation. So, I think it's pretty unreasonable and unrealistic to be absorbed in “self” considering the phases of our journey. 

Being absorbed in self begets decisions like spending that extra fund on a really lavish meal you truly cannot afford while forgetting your savings plan because “make yourself happy” or “give your soul what it desires” this action would make “self” feel fulfilled but indirectly affects the “ones after us” because continued perpetuating same would see us having little to nothing for future use. 

I could go on analyzing so many selfish thought processes and the outcome is mostly alike, we cheat on a whim because “self” requires satisfaction and our partner (“fellow traveler”) has been recently unable to satisfy like before etc. If we constantly put ourselves in the center of every feeling, desire, want or need we are heading for a disaster, in some cases not for us but for other journeyers. 

 

My philosophy is as much as we can let us consciously not make any journeyers' trip worse off, yes, I strive for happiness but would consistently ensure I am not encroaching on any other journeyers' joy or fulfillment.  

It's usually a thin line between “I am just trying to make myself happy” and “my mother/father/lover is selfish and is hurting me”. I feel if everyone of us thought of the people we walk with before speaking, doing or even thinking we would have minimal reports of abuse, pain or dissatisfaction. 

As much as I understand it's impossible to magically make the whole world more selfless or in the least “nicer”, I humor myself by praying that some of us could at least try. 

 

I hope this makes you try or even to think of the bigger crowd before putting ourselves in the center of every desire.  

 

XOXOXXXX Yenique