Tag: selfishness

On Commercialism

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

It’s the holiday season but I’ve grown cynical over the years. There is so much commercialism and everything is so centered around buying as much crap as possible. I see so much selfishness as people splurge on useless items, but there are so many better uses for our money that can help others.

Why does this time of year have to be so commercial? Isn’t is supposed to be about giving?

Sincerely,

Aint Buyin It

Dear ABI,

The holidays are not the only time of year when there is commercialism. There is commercialism every day of the year. Our very society is built upon this. Is this a good or bad situation?

It’s really irrelevant either way. The reality is, the world has adopted this and is moving forward in this way. The only valuable question is, are you the kind of person that thinks by fixing the world you will be happy, or are you happy enough to work on things that you think need fixing?

If you want to dismantle capitalism and overthrow the system, that is up to you. I’m not saying this with any sort or sarcasm. If that is where you wish to put your energy, then you should do so.

If you want to join in on the capitalism, that is also up to you. Nothing wrong with that either, and you should feel free to do so.

But your judgment of others, is that really helping the situation? Is it helping you or anyone else live a better life?

Stop pointing the finger outside yourself and criticizing the world. If you want your world to change, it must come from within first. There can be no peace in society if there is no peace in individual people. Society is only an expression of who we are inside. Happy people make a happy situation. Miserable people…

If you go about trying to solve your inner emptiness by accumulating things outside of you – relationships, money, gifts, whatever – then you will find it is an endless pursuit. Everything will become stale after time, and you will keep having to raise the bar of accumulation to feel satisfied.

But when you reach your final breath in this life – you do know you have a finite amount of breaths right? It’s not coming as a shock to you? When you reach that breath, you will learn you can’t take any of this stuff with you. You can’t even take your body!

It all gets donated back to the earth. So you never truly own anything anyway. All you have is how beautiful was your experience in this short blip of time you call your life.

It is true, most people are just buying things this time of year. Whether for others or for themselves, that short burst of joy they receive is not going to make them happy in the long run.

If you use shopping for anyone as a way to feel better about yourself, then you will always be headed for disappointment.

If you want this to change in people, you must embody how you want the world to be. The change you are seeking is not in the so called commercially enslaved people – it is in you and with your judgment.

How many things can you do right now to help? You can donate your time, your money, your skills, your energy, your mind…any or all of these you can give to any project you feel is worth it.

When people see the way you are changing, you will find naturally that you attract new opportunities. More people that value what you are doing will appear, more ways to change the community around you will become apparent.

If you want the entire human civilization to change, it is going to take time. That is because you cannot change society with one sweeping brushstroke. You can only change individual people. But it only takes a few dedicated people to provide the opportunities for countless people to make those changes.

You also have no control over what people do. You can rant at them on social media, you can yell at them in the supermarket, you can tell them how and what they should or shouldn’t be buying, but no one will listen to you. People don’t want to be managed, they want to be included. How can you include them in this new world you envision if you judge them?

The only thing you can transform is yourself! So work on what matters to you. If commercialism truly bothers you that much, eliminate it from your life as much as possible, and see what happens in that space you create.

But don’t waste your time on all this judgment. Bah humbug is for fairy tales. You are living in the real world. You can actually make things happen, if you just understand the source and solution to all the problems you see is not out there, it is in you.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Altruism

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

What is better, altruism or selfishness? You are always talking about focusing on one’s own self, but isn’t that the reason the world is in such tatters?

Sincerely,

All True Isms

Dear ATI,

First of all, you have pitted altruism and selfishness as though they are absolute opposites. Life is not built in such polarizing ways. What you see as opposites are just in an internal dance with each other, inseparable and unified.

Let us first define these terms – altruism and selfishness. Because you will have your own ideas and society has it’s own definition of these, we are dealing with a lot of conclusions in your mind.

Today we look at selfishness as thinking only of one’s self especially at the expense of everyone and everything else. We then look at altruism as putting everyone and everything else as more important than you. I am not for or against either of these.

If you are insecure, have all kids of psychological games going on in your head, then even if on the surface you appear selfish or altruistic, inside you could be the opposite, couldn’t you?

For example, are there not many so called altruistic people that are self righteous? Are there not people who use there altruism as a way of feeling superior to others? So suddenly even being altruistic can be selfish!

So being altruistic isn’t better. I’m sure there are people who even if they gave you a gift you wouldn’t want to touch it because you would get tangled up in all the strings attached to it.

Similarly, there are many people who solely focus on themselves – but they are not doing it at the expense of anyone or anything. They are simply trying to be the best version of themselves they can be – that is the best gift you can contribute to the world, isn’t it? In that sense, they are absolutely altruistic! Most people are one big problem in this world. But a selfish person in this definition is one of the few who isn’t.

Don’t look at life in such black and white terms. What you label yourself as has no basis in reality. You can wear a costume and be totally different underneath. You can act selfish but be altruistic and you can act altruistic and be selfish.

You must take a look at yourself. If it is your path, your way to contribute and give to others, and that helps you come in touch with your inner nature, then use it. If simply sitting and not involving yourself or compromising yourself to others is your way, then use that.

What I am saying is that the quality with which you do things is what matters, not how you categorize yourself.

If you truly wish to be altruistic, then you must learn to become the quality of giving. Your very life must be a contribution. In your job, in your relationships, in your family – whatever sphere you are in, are you not contributing to other people?

You must make that contribution one that betters all. If you simply learn to be joyful of your own nature, without needing the external to make you happy, then for sure you will contribute well to everything.

But if you truly wish to be selfish, then you must also not get caught in the trap of “I can do whatever I what because my life is all that matters!” Yes, you must do your journey your way. There is no other way. But do not delude yourself into thinking you are the most important thing in this cosmos.

You are just one small minuscule speck of life. There is a much larger existence happening all around you. You don’t need to contribute to it as an altruist. But if you decide not to involve yourself with others, then you must be willing to be by yourself, unattached to the outside but totally involved with your own process.

This isn’t about right or wrong. This is just that if you think you can walk around with arrogance and confidence that you only have to look out for number 1, you will get entangled and enslaved by everything. Humility is of the utmost importance whether you are an altruist or selfish.

Internally, you cannot make conclusions about yourself. You may appear on the surface to be one way or the other. But no matter what way you choose to be on the surface, your life is always only happening within you.

So choose selfishness or altruism, it doesn’t matter. But inside, you must be a living contribution to this world. You are connected to everything. You could not be here without it contributing to you either.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Offering

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

In this world it seems like people are obsessed only with what they can take. So few of us actually give our time and offer any service to others. Is humanity truly so corrupt? How can we overcome this selfishness and contribute more than we take?

Sincerely,

Give or Take

Dear GOT,

First of all I must stop this notion of humanity. There is no how can “we” overcome, there is only how can “you” overcome. There’s no need to project your sentiments onto all of humanity, first you deal with yourself.

Second I want you to understand that what you ask is impossible. You can spend your entire life in service to others and still you will have taken far more than you ever gave. This is because you have nothing to give that was ever yours to begin with.

Everything you call you, from your body or your mind or your emotions, you only have it because you took it from this planet. And believe me, one day you will be giving it all back.

From the air you breathe to the food you eat, you are always taking something from this planet in order to live. But feeling alive, feeling satisfied, feeling nourished is another matter entirely. This does not depend on what you take. This solely depends on how you offer your life.

I am careful here with how I word this, because I don’t want you to think that this is some numbers game. “If I offer 10,000 things in my life, then I will shed all my karma and become enlightened!”

You can never give back enough to undo all you’ve taken. No one can. This isn’t about the amount you offer. This is about making your very life into an offering.

If you can live life in such a way that with each step, you are an offering to all that is around you, then you will become receptive on a level you cannot imagine.

I want you to try, for even the next hour or so – just in every second of these next few hours, be of service. Offer yourself to everything around you.

What I mean by this is when you look at the home you are in, offer your respect. Take the steps in this house towards your door with a level of care and attention that you would in a temple.

Step to the door and walk outside. Give the strangers you see a smile, offer your joy to them.

Look up at the sun and offer your most sincere thanks for how it is providing you with life constantly.

Like this go about every moment thinking only of what you can offer. It’s not about what you are giving. That you gave a dollar to a homeless man or helped an old woman cross the street is not the point. When you did those things, was the quality of your being an offering? Not just those things either, it has to be consistent, with each breath you must strive.

You turn your very presence into one of offering. You don’t need to do anything external.

Establish yourself so that there is no way you can even exist without contributing. Make your whole life a contribution.

I know this may all sound so futile. If we take more than we give by our very nature, what is the use of turning yourself into an offering?

The use in it is just this: You don’t have to do anything and life will anyway give you something. In every moment, even if you just sit not wanting anything, it will give you air, sunlight, sound, smells, sights, so much. There is no action required by you when it comes to taking. Taking is passive. You are wasting energy doing something that will anyway happen.

Instead put your energy into emptying yourself. You become receptive only by turning into an offering. In each moment, you offer and empty yourself. The glass that is empty can receive the most.

If you can commit yourself like this, even for just those few hours, to being an offering to everything in your experience, just watch and see how satisfied you become. See how full you feel. It will be far greater than any fullness you have felt from actively taking.

If you can decide that you are not the most important thing in this existence, then offering yourself will not be difficult. And with that offering comes receptivity. Life will shove so much into you.

You have no idea how much life is offering in every moment. How receptive to it you are is all that truly is missing.

The real poetry lies in that only by mirroring life can you touch the source of life. From your perspective, life is constantly offering to you. From the rest of creation’s perspective, you are an offering to it. So live like it!

Whether you realize it or not, just the way life is always offering to you, you are offering yourself to life. Make it into a conscious, living, breathing process for you in each moment, and watch how fulfilled your life becomes.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise

On Selfishness

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I sometimes find myself behaving very selfishly. When I am struggling or in pain, I tend to only think of myself. How can I become less selfish?

Sincerely,

Selfish Allergy

Dear SA,

Why do you do anything that you do in life? I know, it’s a big question.

For example, your job why do you work there? Or your spouse, why are you with them? Your relationships, your career, your hobbies, your thoughts, literally anything and everything, why do any of it?

You might say I work to feed my family. I am with my spouse because I care about them and want them to be happy. I want you to get a reality check if this is what you think.

Everything you do is selfish. Everything you do is in your self interest.

Under all the surface reasons, you only do any of these things in your life because you feel they will make your experience of life more meaningful, happier, or easier. You may dress it up and mask it as altruism, but please see that it is not.

You are always selfish and behaving selfishly. This is not to chastise you or scold you. This is not to take away from any love you feel for your family, or from the genuine joyful memories you have. Those are all fine. This is just the default state people are in.

When unconscious, you are only capable of behaving selfishly.

You mentioned being in pain or struggling as a trigger for selfishness. You could not be more correct. This desire to make your life better than it currently is, to move out of the struggle and pain, that is the very basis of selfishness.

Basically what I am saying is your entire life is a struggle, therefore it has all been selfish.

When I say that your entire life is a struggle, what I mean is that you are never satisfied with the way things are. Most people have not lived even one moment and been satisfied. Not because life gave them a peaceful moment, but because it was there choice to be that way, regardless of what life threw – few people live like this.

If you are not satisfied with this moment the way it is, you will always be struggling, longing, pushing to find something better. Because you are only concerned with your experience of life becoming better, what other recourse is there but selfishness?

You won’t be able to become less selfish. It is every human being’s desire to evolve, to expand, to grow. You can never avoid this. If you achieve one milestone in life, it may satisfy you for a moment, but pretty soon the longing for the next milestone will come.

Instead, I want you to see that the basis of your entire life is selfishness. But this need not be a bad thing.

The only time when selfishness is an issue is when it is making the experience of others and the environment around you worse.

So the real question isn’t how to become less selfish. The real question is how to live in such a way that you leave this planet and all the people you encountered along the way better off than you found them?

Right now, the problem is you see yourself as an island. You have an identity, a self-image, that is deeply rooted and layered. You think that with this identity, you are special, unique, and without it, you are nothing.

So you cling to this identity, constantly making choices to deepen it, not to shed it. This separates you further and further, isolating you instead of unifying you with existence.

The reality is if I stripped away everything you call as you – all your titles, your attachment to you relationships, your preferences, all of it – you would still be 100% unique in this universe. That is because there are no two moments in this existence that have ever been identical, and there never will be.

When the source of who you are is built like this, there really is no need for such an obsession with being a unique special little snowflake. This identity you are so clinging to is the only obstacle.

Instead, if you want your life to enhance everything around you, you must learn to stop identifying with all the labels in your mind and start seeing things as they are.

If you paid close attention, you would see that you are not functioning independently. You think your respiratory system is just from your nostrils to your lungs, but the other half of it is in the trees, is it not?

In this way, you are connected to all of existence. Everything is constantly giving you life – not just air to breathe, but your very life essence! You also are constantly exuding your life energy in an ever reciprocating unity.

If you saw the tree as part of you rather than separate from you, tell me, would you every dare harm it?

Now in the same way, if you saw your spouse, your boss, your neighbour, the dog, whoever or whatever, as part of you, where is the question of ever making things worse?

If you start practicing being more inclusive, seeing everything as a part of you, you will naturally nurture it. It will be effortless. You have your selfish nature to thank for that.

If you are built to be selfish, then just see everything as you! You will automatically do what’s best for all.

All it takes to see others as yourself is to stop giving so much importance to what you think you are.

Every time you think you are a mother, or a brother, or an employee, or a citizen, or a warrior, or a poet, etc – just remind yourself that you are none of those things. It will take some work, but eventually you will stop identifying so strongly with all your masks.

If you constantly are labeling yourself in life, you limit yourself. This is a true crime. You are boundless potential, each moment you can choose however you want to be. Life has given you no labels, you are free to be any way you wish!

Whatever petty definition you give yourself in your mind will never be as good as that truth.

So start including all of existence within you, because you are worthy to include them. In this practice of absolute inclusion, your selfishness will no longer be an issue.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Ego

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I try to do a lot of work on myself and spiritual growth is important to me. But I find that even though I know I should do things like be honest, gentle, kind, etc, my ego comes in and I start acting selfishly. The ego is always sabotaging me! How do I work on ridding myself of it?

Sincerely,

Leggo my Ego

Dear LME,

How the hell are you going to get rid of something that doesn’t exist?

People like to talk about ego on the spiritual path. It often feels like there is a true self underneath all that you are, and the ego is in the way of it. Your true self is there for sure, but this idea of the ego is something that you have invented.

Tell me, when something in your life goes the way you want, where is this ego? Is it there to receive credit for the good?

No, only when something doesn’t go the way you want, then suddenly the ego appears! Now you have a convenient target to dump unto. Ego is there so you can have someone to blame.

You see, what you call as ego is just a scapegoat. Why can’t you just be honest with yourself and take responsibility? It is you that is responsible for your life. That includes the good and bad, the ups and downs, all of it.

When you name all the bads and downs as “my ego”, then you’re just shirking responsibility. When you shirk responsibility, you remove any power you had to change it.

Take a look at this example – Let’s say you are walking down the street and see a piece of garbage on the ground. If you find a scapegoat for this garbage, you will never pick it up. You can blame the problem on people who litter, on the government, on just about damn near anyone. You take no responsibility, therefore you don’t have to do anything.

But let’s say instead you look at that garbage and say “this is my doing, I am responsible”. Now you have options. It’s not about blaming yourself; obviously you didn’t drop it there. But you are responsible in that moment for it being there. If you do nothing, it will still be there won’t it? You are complicit.

The litter is your responsibility the moment it came into your experience. Everything that happens in your experience is like this. Everything in your life is your responsibility.

Because the external world has easy targets to blame, scapegoating is simple. But inside, there’s just you, so you had to create some other person called the ego to put the blame on. Please see how you are just avoiding taking responsibility for your life.

I emphasize responsibility because you must understand that it is the first most basic step towards making life the way you want it. You should take responsibility for everything in this existence, only then will you work towards improving life for everyone.

But more important than that is taking responsibility for your internal world. No more bullshitting yourself with the ego. If you are in a bad mood, it’s your responsibility. If you’re feeling challenged, it’s your responsibility. No matter what, your life is your responsibility and yours alone.

If you really must give a name to what is inside you, just call it your identity. But your identity includes everything that you call as you: your relationships, your titles, your roles, your job, your hobbies. It isn’t like the convenient ego that is only the bad stuff.

If you want to get to the truth of who you are, you must drop your identity. This doesn’t mean just the challenging stuff that you don’t like. It means your whole identity. All of it, even the “good stuff”.

When you strip away every last bit of your identity, what is left will be something that requires nothing of you. The source of who you are. It is total, it is complete.

Don’t go on endlessly categorizing yourself. Putting things in the pro and con bucket, calling the con bucket the ego, then trying to destroy the ego. What a waste of time and a silly game.

The game of the ego is just a trap for you to feel like you are spiritually growing but in reality you’re just avoiding the real work of dropping it all.

If you want to be your true self, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. It’s a fire sale: everything must go!

Let’s start by dropping the ego. There’s only you in there. If there’s two people inside you, then it’s time to see the psychiatrist isn’t it? Trust me, one person is enough to deal with, you don’t need two!

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On The Golden Rule

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

What is the key to knowing what’s right and what’s wrong in this world? I feel like people don’t follow that golden rule – do unto others as you would have done to you. Why does such a simple thing elude so many? Why can’t we all just get along? Morality shouldn’t be this hard.

Sincerely,

The Golden Rule Keeper

Dear TGRK,

Throw your morality out the window. You do not need it. Take a look at the world around you – everyone has some claim to their morality. They all think they are correct and that their morality is the one true morality. Yet is the world a more peaceful, loving, or joyful place from morality? It may have brought some sense of safety or comfort, but it has never brought a more beautiful experience to individual beings, and it never will.

Morality is just an excuse for you to point your finger at those around you. Look at where morality stems from: comparison. It is a way to feel good about yourself at the expense of others.

“I know I am good person because I have a moral code. Look at this person, and this person, and that person…tsk, how immoral they are! At least I am better. If only they were like me”

I hope you are hearing how condescending and immature this self talk is. This is exactly what you are doing with your so called morality – judging others so you may feel better about yourself.

It would be one thing if we could claim morality worked the way you are doing it. But not only has it not made other people around you moral, but it hasn’t even made you moral! At least it should work for one of the two, then we could claim 50% effectiveness. But morality serves nobody.

Let’s take a look at your golden rule:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

First of all, where did you get this silly idea that everyone wants to be treated as you do? For example, perhaps you really like to hug people. Should you go around hugging everyone, no matter how they feel about it? Just because you want to be treated that way is no reason to treat everyone that way. It is a self-centered and inaccurate worldview.

If you want to follow some arbitrary rules for how to treat people, then at least you should treat people the way they want to be treated. But some people do not even know how they want to be treated! Some are suffering in ways you can’t imagine and will only accept more suffering. Is this how to treat them?

This is why I tell you to throw your morality out the window. You were right about one thing, it really isn’t that hard to figure out how to treat people. It’s actually deceptively simple:

Just be happy.

You see, when you are happy of your own nature, and not because of external circumstance – if you can just be here right now happy to be alive – then I don’t need to tell you a damn thing about how to do what’s right. If you are happy, do I need to tell you don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t mistreat others?

When you are unhappy, you only look for what others can do for you. When you are happy, that is the only time you are genuinely capable of truly giving others what they need. When happy, you don’t need a damn thing from anyone. This is the best space to act from in life, because you will just naturally give with no strings attached. Morality is not needed when you are happy of your own nature. Common sense will actually become common in your experience.

People do not want to believe that the answer to their problems and the world’s problems is to become more pleasant themselves. How could life be so simple? How could it be that if you just work on your own happiness that it can help everyone else?

You see, right now you are trying to make everyone else in the world the way you want them, but you haven’t even made yourself the way you want! What kind of authority do you have to tell others what is best?

First work on yourself. There will be no peace in the world until you as an individual have peace within. No matter what we try to create in terms of technologies or systems, if people don’t learn to turn inward, we will continue making the same stupid mistakes over and over. The time has come to just be happy. The next time you start comparing everyone around you to some moral code, practice being happy instead. I promise you, it is a doorway – a beautiful doorway – that can lead you to places you never knew possible.

Be grateful that the answer to your problems is just for you to have a wonderful life. Only when you have turned inward do you have any right to help people see what is right for them.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.