Selfishness improves your mental health When you become selfish, you start prioritizing your mental health and wellbeing. You are better able to feel, identify, and process your emotions and feelings as they come. The emotion is nothing but an expression of a subconsciously accepted altruism. If one acts to satisfy it one surrenders fully to altruism, and most definitely does NOT act selfishly. While we often presume that everyone wants to be happy, in some cultures and religions, being happy is regarded as a self-indulgent or selfish aim—and the happiness of others is considered more important.
The pain is that we are not worthy or safely connected to others. I suspect self-centeredness originates from a combination of genes, childhood trauma and training. During our early years, our primary caregiver usually our mother teaches us how to feel about ourselves based on how they feel about us. Socialize a little with some of the other people here. Get to know some of the others a little better.
Although they appear to be similar in meaning, the differences are subtle. Confidence and self-absorption rooted in narcissism are not the same: first, narcissism is self-focused while confidence considers the wellbeing of others. It leads to selfishness, the desire to use other people as means to get things for you.
The craving arises in response to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings. These feeling tones see our earlier post on the 5 aggregates are triggered automatically by sense stimuli e. The mindfulness program at Hope provides a path away from selfishness to a more kinder way of being in the world. It involves cultivating wholesome qualities such as warm-heartedness, compassion, and friendliness, while at the same time removing the roots of self-obsession by developing insight.
A great practice for cultivating kindness is metta loving-kindness meditation this is similar to exercise 2 above. Developing insight into selfishness goes right to the root of the problem. We remove the root of selfishness by developing insight into impersonal qualities of the 5 aggregates. We can begin developing insight into selfishness right from the beginning of our meditation practice. The greed, hatred, and delusion that is triggered by craving see above is initially observed in meditation as the 5 hindrances doubt, desire, ill-will, restlessness, and dullness.
We start to recognize these hindrances as they arise and gain the ability to relax and let go of them. We see for ourselves how these sources of selfishness are impersonal processes i. If we are sincere in our wish to find peace and happiness, we need to find a path that reduces our selfishness and increases kind-heartedness. Those of us who have battled with an addiction will have plenty of experience with bollocks.
The whole thing becomes a never-ending festival of bollocks - a shitshow of epic proportions. We lose things, we do stuff we later regret, and we hurt ourselves as well as those we care about.
What is it that most people want at the start of a new year? Isn't it usually the hope to do better or be better? Deep down we know that we are capable of so much more.
We suspect that the life we are living is somehow less satisfying than the life we could be living. The New Year approaches like a line in the sand with the opportunity of a brand new chapter. The good news is that Thailand has removed most of the border restrictions that were there due to the pandemic, so we are now able to reopen our doors. Waiting for things to improve so you can quit an addiction is like waiting to get fit before taking up exercise.
Waiting for the right time to quit is dangerous because the mind will always be able to come up with another reason to delay. A balanced recovery is a strong recovery, and this is where we have a good mix of spiritual, physical, and mental activities in our life. A common mistake we make in recovery is to put all of our eggs into one basket.
We become obsessed with exercise, work, or a new relationship and it leads to imbalance. Research shows that reducing our exposure to news and social media can reduce stress levels, increase productivity, and make us less prone to negative mental states. Your church is growing and developing in its ministry to the community?
This can be a subtle form of selfishness because it makes a critical person feel in control. People slowly started hanging around me less.
My love for pointing out problems eventually turned me into one. We all have limitations and should learn to embrace them as part of our humanity. But many of us are working hard and investing our time and gifts well. I felt like I was too good for certain people. As I sought to fulfill an unending standard for myself, I lost people around me. Most of us have a hard time with criticism, but at the same time, we know somewhere deep down that some criticism is necessary for improvement.
But selfishness rejects any sort of criticism. This master is harsh and cruel. If they do so, they do it furtively and at the expense of a guilty conscience. Even the pursuit of pleasure is as compulsory as is work. It does not lead them away from the continual restlessness which pervades their lives. For the most part, they are not even aware of this. As children, we learn that it is better to give than to receive, as though these are always diametrically opposed actions. We are taught that selfishness is the same thing as self-love.
That selfishness is narcissistic and evil and unselfishness is good and kind. That loving oneself necessarily excludes loving others. But what if this is all misguided at best, and dangerous at worst? That true unselfishness requires self-love?
As he points out, our current definitions of selfishness are highly problematic because they prejudge the issue; they are extremely value-laden. Consider the dictionary. Our gut reaction is that people who act selfishly are bad people, that this is not a good way to act. At certain times, selfish behavior is good, and at other times, it is bad.
It also may be that unselfish behavior is sometimes good and at other times bad.
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