The other day, I was hanging out with my block mates when one of them brought up a very interesting argument. She said that we are all selfish. At first, I was really offended because I think of myself as a pretty selfless guy (hehe). I immediately started thinking of ways to prove her wrong. After a while, when I calmed down, I decided to hear what she had to say. I have to admit that she had a valid point. According to her, we are all selfish in the sense that everything we do would somehow benefit us.
To give an example, let’s say you did something good; something society would call “selfless.” You donated all your money to a church. If there was an act that would be the complete opposite of selfish, that’s what it would be right? Not really. You still benefit from doing this. The benefit could be personal, emotional, or even spiritual. You feel good about yourself for doing it, or you felt happy when you did it, or your soul gets saved. You will always benefit from the act in some way. Even the most genuine, most selfless act would benefit the doer, and the doer can always, in a way, be considered as selfish.
A lot of people would probably disagree with this statement, just like I did. This is expected, given the negative connotation we place on this word. However, after thinking about it, I say that being selfish should not be a bad thing. In fact, it should be a good thing. We just have to change the way we define selfish, and, more specifically, the way we define the self.
We should forget about the word “selfless.” Like, why is doing something for others even called “selfless” in the first place? Is it because you think less about yourself or lose a part of yourself? No. If we connect this to Heidegger’s essay, and follow his definition of the self, we acknowledge that the self does not refer solely to us as individuals, but rather, as a collective being, consisting of every human being in the world, helping others, becomes helping ourselves. Doing things for others connects us to the rest of the world, or to ourselves. It brings us closer to ourselves and makes us more human. In this sense, the more you do for others, the more selfish you are.
Being selfish can be a good thing if we simply change our definition of “self.” We should stop thinking about “me” and start thinking about the rest of the people around us. Let us stop viewing ourselves as individuals scattered around the Earth. Rather, as Heidegger put it, a “collective Self.” We should view our Self as human beings grouped together sharing a collective experience that is allowed by our existence and, as much as possible, everything we do should be geared toward the benefit of the group, not just the individual. We should strive to be “selfish.”
