I was tuned to one of the local Amharic radio stations the previous Sunday while I heard an invited guest, a scholar, was discussing and sharing his thought about the essence of selfishness or selflessness in line with the concept of loving one’s own self. He made one important point, which inspired me to write this piece.
The remark of this scholar was that, ‘Loving one’s own self is natural and those who do not love themselves need medical attention’. He said that it was a life principle or concept that has been misunderstood by many people.
According to him, if someone loves his/her own self, it does not mean that he/she is or does not make him/ her selfish. Instead it means that such type of individuals know what is good or bad, harmless or harmful for themselves and others. They have self-respect and feel the same for others, he said.
He also stressed that most dictators, who came to power in the past, used advantage of their peoples’ sense of selflessness to sacrifice themselves in a wrong political and racial ideologies or thoughts. As a result, too much damage has been done, many people have lost their lives, suffered from wars, diseases and poverty. This is due to the misconception that selflessness or doing something for the wellbeing of others based on an ideology, which they believed was right or wrong.
Meanwhile, the scholar strongly noted that loving one’s own self is recognizing the very purpose of life or the meaning of existentialism.
Even if I have no intention of supporting or opposing this man’s ideology, my short experience in life has thought me that the essence of loving one’s own self in comparison with selfishness or selflessness is interpreted by most people based on their own interests or other peoples’ action or the way they decide to act on certain issues or situations.
In this case, I would like to share a story, which I believe to be an experience that would enable readers to entertain different ideas concerning the aforementioned issues.
It is an experience of three young friends who grew up in a poor neighborhood where only one wealthy person resided in. The rich man and his family were living in a multistory house with luxury cars but they have good relationships with the poor and middle-class members of the community in that particular neighborhood. They also participated in community development activities and covered most of the financial costs for the construction of internal roads and infrastructural materials to access clean water for the community.
However, taking in to account the reality of the spreading corruption in several administrative systems of their City, the three youngsters believed and concluded that the rich man’s wealth didn’t come from nowhere but corrupt business only.
Seating on the stones at the corner of their block, these young men always see the rich guy or one of his family members coming out of or entering their compound driving their fancy cars through the neighborhood. Whenever they see this, the youths felt the anger and vain growing inside their souls and it wouldn’t be easy to accept the reality of having such people living luxurious life while others like themselves are suffering from poverty in the neighborhood.
Therefore, two of them decided to do something about it. They have decided to rob the rich man and came a good chance to broke in to his house when he took his family outside the City for a one-week vacation.
These two young men have believed that the rich man has stolen from the poor, one way or the other, and he was a selfish person. Therefore, stilling from this selfish wealthy guy was the right thing to do for the two young men while the other friend opposed the idea. They told him that they deserve to have their cut from the Nation’s wealth that was monopolized by people like the man in the neighborhood but he couldn’t agree for different reasons he had and nobody knew what it was.
Anyways, the two friends had already concluded that every reach person in the city was involved in corruption and such people should pay for their poor lives. And if their best friend wouldn’t take part in the robbery, they have to warn him not to tell anybody about their plan. They even threatened him that they would kill him if he tried to expose them.
Well, the time had come and they would break in to the rich man’s house. It didn’t take them minutes when they found unlocked vault full of cash in hundreds of thousands. One of them was satisfied of the cut he had from the two-way split and told his partner to leave the place quickly. Then he headed for the backdoor, where he would safely escape without being noticed by anyone.
The other guy thought he didn’t have enough that he kept on opening boxes and searching for jewelries and other expensive materials. His friend standing near the backdoor of the house once again told him that they need to leave as quick as possible but he just responded negligently saying "Just a minute" and went on searching for several minutes.
Suddenly, the police swarmed up the place and caught the late thief red handed. When he looked around his friend has vanished. Doing his time in jail he would always remember that night and blame his friend for leaving him behind. The escaped thief on the other hand, blamed their other friend, the only one who knew all about their plans, for informing the police. The rich man and his family returned the next day as soon as the police called and informed the incident.
Even if it was sad to know that he was robbed by the young kids of the neighborhood, whose families the rich man had better relationship with, it was hard to tell whether he was upset or didn’t care about the money he was stolen. But he had to acknowledge and award the young guy, who exposed his friends’ robbery, with much amount of money good enough to change his life.
Now, the question is, how many personalities could we observe from these four individuals, the rich, the thieves and their friend? Can we see self -loving or selfish or selfless characters? What are our criteria? Is it possible to say that their best friend betrayed the young thieves? Did he expose them because they threatened him or because he thought it was the right thing to do? Or did he have the ability to think one step forward and he exposed them calculating the probability of receiving the reward?
When the story goes on and as we see the view point of the neighborhood community, most of the youth supported the two young thieves and admired the one who escaped while they called the exposer a ‘snitch’. He couldn’t handle the critics and curse that he decided to disappear from the neighborhood for good.
Most of the adults who used to praise their rich neighbor for his support and contribution in community development activities, would also say the wealthy man had lost nothing based on their perception that he had more money left in his bank. They rather felt sympathetic for the boy who was caught red-handed and received years of jail terms without enjoying a penny from the money he had stolen.
However, no one knew and didn’t care to know the rich man’s early life as it was full of struggle against poverty. He grew up on his own after his mother and father died suffering from malaria when he was a child. He started as a shoeshine boy. After ten years he opened his own small shop. His shop grew up into a super market and he used his experience of surviving a tough life with tough commitment for change, which enabled him to build his business from bottom- up.
But most of the poor in his neighborhood also made a painful remark that ‘bad luck always follows poor guys like the convicted thief while life always favors the selfish, the snake in the grass, the backstabbers, the cruel, the traitors… .people like the one who called the police and those who are rich and corrupt with powerful authorities’.
I believe the above story and other experiences that we witness in our daily lives would allow us to look deeper in to our thoughts, perceptions and the morals that we have when we decide what is wrong or right, what is selfishness or selflessness and the essence of loving one’s own self.
I would like to share another story. Mr. X was married to Mrs. Y for ten years. He works the whole day and he always gets back home exhausted every night. He also has to wake up early every morning to drive their two children to school and go to his job. His wife on the other hand, has been suffering from insomnia for years.
Once Mr. x was in a deep sleep when she woke him up in the middle of a night screaming like the house was on fire. He got up quickly wondering what happened and asked her what was wrong. His wife said "It is you what is wrong. I’m here sleeping not a wink the whole night but you are sleeping like everything is fine. Even worse you are snoring like a pig. My God, why would you do this to me? How is it even so much easy for you to sleep while I’m awake? You are the most selfish person in this world".
Her husband asked her back "What do you want me to do, stay awake the whole night with you and loose my job? What relief would it bring you if I couldn’t sleep and suffer with you? Who would take the children to school if I don’t rest well and wake up early in the morning?"
What happened next between these couple may not be necessary but I believe their conversation above would illustrate how many people interpret selfishness and how much of selflessness they desire or the generosity they expect from others.
Does loving our self-mean ignoring others or does loving others mean ignoring our self? I think neither. But I believe in one reality. Whatever, our judgment about the abovementioned couple and whatever we expect from others based on our interests, there is always one truth we could never lead a life without. And that truth is, knowing that life is all about balance. Whenever, people love their own selves or others, judge somebody else as being selfish or praise as a selfless kind or whatever actions they take in favor or against something or other people, there are always consequences. The consequences of our thoughts or deeds would determine ours or others’ future existence but we always need balance. When we know balance, we would learn what is enough or too much for us, the heights and length, width and depth of selfishness, selflessness and the essence of loving one’s own self.