Some people are connectors. They look at life as a series of opportunities to help other people connect with each other in a way that amplifies the well-being of all. I count myself in this group.
Other people move through the world filtering only for what will directly benefit them and giving no thought to anyone else's needs, desires, challenges, and triumphs. That's how I greeted the world in my 20s.
You see I don't think there is "this sort of person" and "that sort of person." I think that at different points in our lives we have the capacity to be any sort of person.
The Challenge
This is wonderful in terms of our ability to improve, which I definitely see my transition as having evidenced. But it also goes the other way.
No matter what we have done to help others and be a benefit to the world, we can still turn selfish at any point. It is a constant endeavor to have our default be asking what we can give, not what we can get.
Note that I'm not advocating for selflessness. Our compassion must necessarily include ourselves. It is ONLY including ourselves that is the problem. Generosity is a virtue that doesn't require self-sacrifice.
It's important to cultivate this part of our character, and never assume that it will be there in the future simply because it has been there in the past. I could say the same about any positive aspects of our personalities really.
Why Bother
The benefits of extending this extra effort are many, but the bottom line is that we get to have happier lives when we look at the world as a series of opportunities to uplift others. You see, in order to see the world that way we have to move from a fundamental ground of our own sufficiency. We have to see that whatever problems we may have, we actually have something to give.
This is an incredibly empowering point of view. And it's what I lacked in my early adulthood that undermined me in all I tried to do for myself. I never really felt competent. I never really felt relevant. I was always seeing myself as the one who needed this and that.
And really, I did need a lot. I entered adulthood wholly unprepared for the endeavor. But looking to others to give to me never got me out of that pattern. It was only once I began transforming myself into a giver that my own life began to get better.
I started by volunteering at a church's after school computer program for immigrant children. Within a year I'd quit my job and entered a Master's degree program in preparation for becoming a child therapist. The training alone helped me begin having a much greater capacity to contribute to the well-being of others in general.
As the years have gone by, I've continued to amass more and more skills, and always within a context of how I can use those skills to benefit both myself and others. I'll still go through particularly stressful periods sometimes, in which I revert to thinking only of my own needs. Thankfully I have a dog and other responsibilities to others that will snap me out of it soon enough. But each time I come out of the trance of selfishness, I realize how painful a place that is to live.
When you are always selfish, you don't realize how much suffering it is causing you. It's such a Catch-22, because it is only once you start thinking of others that you realize how painful it was not to.
I believe that we are naturally generous spirits, flowing freely to all the parts of our Self. When we live selfishly, we cut ourselves off from so much of ourselves, that we just can't possibly be truly happy. We can be entertained. We can be amused. We can be inebriated, and such people often are. They call that happiness because it's the closest to happiness they ever get. But it is not happiness. It is suffering.
Compassion
I invite you to live with compassion for yourself by cultivating your generosity of spirit as if your happiness depended on it. I believe it does.
(Photo source: Pixabay)
Resteems always appreciated!