Thursday 7 January 2010

Selfish

self⋅ish /ˈ Pronunciation [sel-fish]
–adjective
1. devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
2. characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself: selfish motives.
--Dictionary.com

"Someone who has more than they need"
--Gino Conte


Is thinking selfish things but no acting upon them just as bad as doing selfish things? Is selfish motive equal to selfish thoughts? (To skip all the random ass internet babble talk, please skip to last sentence)

Of course selfish thoughts doesn't harm anyone except for the person thinking them. The it's the fact that the person is having those thoughts and the possibility of acting upon it.

Is it really good to be selfless all the time? Would you rather be selfless all the time or selfish all the time?? I have a friend who doesn't believe that selflessness exists. He thinks that people only act selflessly to gain their own self satisfaction or to receive praise from others and therefore the act of selflessness is actually selfish. Did that make sense?

I think he's wrong though. There a some genuine people out there who just want to help out people. Albeit those people are rare nowadays but yes, they do exist.

He'd refute that people wouldn't want to be selfless and help others if they hated doing good for everyone else, they'd have to enjoy the feeling of helping others and therefore: selfish.

Let's re-evaluate the meaning again.

1. devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
2. characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself: selfish motives.

I think his definition of being selfless is doing things for other people that you don't like doing. But then again, he believe's selflessness isn't real.

So....the real point of this whole blogpost is to ask myself and everyone else: Am I a selfish person?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The person's definition is more of a definition for the word "spoiled", don't you think? Selfish means, for example: a person who thinks higher of themselves and does not care about others but themselves.

Courtney Fong said...

Actually that makes a lot of sense. Can't wait to bring this up with him. Thanks for the input.