Selfish Selflessness

[Deleted Member]

I have been intrigued by the phrase 'Selfish Selflessness', as a lifestyle.

Rough definition (my interpretation) - to help those around you as a means to help yourself. Manipulate with good intentions. Educate/support/care and help to achieve their dreams so you are surrounded by 'better/stronger' people.

What I can't come to terms with, is wondering if this is more down the path of group enlightenment or more of a god-complex cult in the making 🤔

Anyone have experience with helping others to make them better friends/lovers to harvest their happiness, smiles, and joy 😊, man this sounds awful 😅

[Ir****]

Done with only or even primarily the intention of helping yourself in the long run, it begins to verge into cult/ponzi territory, in my opinion. Done with altruistic intent however to lift up others and yourself, it is I believe the highest ascent and objective of wise men throughout history, to uplift all mankind for the common good. Golden rule: Love others as you love yourself and do to others as you want done to you.

[lw****]

Sounds like the plot to thriller movie. I don't have much experience with this but on the surface it seems everyone benefits from it and isn't that similar to any relationship? We help and build up our person to see them happy and smiling which in turn makes us feel awesome. I think you just made normal relationships more complicated.

[Ae****]

I think -
helping others to help yourself is possibly the default way of being and operating for humans. There are lots of benefits all around for everyone involved. I think it becoming negative just depends on the perspective you take while you're doing it. Just aim for being a good guy, remember you're not perfect etc, do your best etc, and you should be fine. It's an extremely normal thing to do good to your partners, children, friends, your community - and to then reap the resulting benefits. (Harvest the benefits 🤣)

[De****]

Possibly just adding fuel to the 'overthinking things' fire 😅 but brings to mind the question, Is there any such thing as a truly altruistic act? Big question in the psychology of motivation!

[ey****]

14 minutes ago, eoinexploring said:

Possibly just adding fuel to the 'overthinking things' fire 😅 but brings to mind the question, Is there any such thing as a truly altruistic act? Big question in the psychology of motivation!

I'm not sure if it's just me - but - largely I am never sure cos even doing something nice gives you a serotonin boost.   It's why people hold doors "to be nice" but then get p**sy when the other person doesn't say thank you.  Cos it denied them the hit to feel good

[ey****]

sometimes - I think - questioning motives of why people do nice things gets into a kinda overthinking

But, one of my day jobs had a buzzphrase of "together we succeed" which was to encourage people to do things which helped others on the team so the team met their goals

of course. the side product of this was you could write on your performance reviews what a team player you were and the team meeting it's targets of course overall benefited you

the same is true out of work.  if you've got a friend who is your friend and needs help and you help them out then (a) you get to spend time with your friend and (b) it might be they are more accomodating to return the favour - or - maybe they've already helped you out - and even if they don't it plays into your friendship

context applies as always
but, you see your friend on a Friday and they're not their usual self - they've got some stuff going on and it's something you can help them with - so you do, spending time with your friend and the next time you see them they're more like the person you enjoy spending time with and so you benefit that way 

[Lo****]

8 hours ago, eoinexploring said:

Possibly just adding fuel to the 'overthinking things' fire 😅 but brings to mind the question, Is there any such thing as a truly altruistic act? Big question in the psychology of motivation!

I don’t believe there is such a thing as pure altruism. Even the most selfless person gets pleasure out of helping someone else. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s how human beings work at their best. 

[Deleted Member]

20 hours ago, eyemblacksheep said:

sometimes - I think - questioning motives of why people do nice things gets into a kinda overthinking

But, one of my day jobs had a buzzphrase of "together we succeed" which was to encourage people to do things which helped others on the team so the team met their goals

of course. the side product of this was you could write on your performance reviews what a team player you were and the team meeting it's targets of course overall benefited you

the same is true out of work.  if you've got a friend who is your friend and needs help and you help them out then (a) you get to spend time with your friend and (b) it might be they are more accomodating to return the favour - or - maybe they've already helped you out - and even if they don't it plays into your friendship

context applies as always
but, you see your friend on a Friday and they're not their usual self - they've got some stuff going on and it's something you can help them with - so you do, spending time with your friend and the next time you see them they're more like the person you enjoy spending time with and so you benefit that way 

Thank you so much for your input, your explanation and the phrase 'together we succeed' is like music to me 🥰

[sW****]

I try to be like this as a person in general. I love building people up to be their best selves.

[DeviantInside]

Ok I'm going to break this down into parts.

From an ethical side there are several different aspects. Firstly the term manipulate tends to denote something done without the other persons knowledge and/or consent. This tends to be seen as unethical irrespective of the intent, particularly when you take into account the practical sides which I will come back to. Though as with all things ethical there is (in my oppinion) no intrinsic morality (a much debated point, especially within religious discussion etc), and as such we have to decide that for ourselves, from within our societal framework etc.

If instead of manipulation we look instead just at acts generally considered altruistic; helping someone in need, supporting someone as they strive to improve or achieve their dreams, doing something nice for someone etc, I would split this into conscious intent. If this is done with a conscious ulterior motive then this falls somewhat into the manipulation category. If done without conscious personal motive then it becomes less clear. We are all driven by primal urges and needs. Dopamine, serotonin etc all act as reward responses in the brain for carryong out processes that have had an evolutionary and survivability purpose for the species... our brains actively encourage us to look after and support our families and loved ones, to respond positively to seeing people being happy and healthy, so at a subconscious level it is almost impossible to seperate that out and be objective about it. We have no frame of reference for experiencing life without these things. So perhaps, because of that objective futility, it doesn't matter, if done with the conscious intent of making the other person's life better then it could be seen as altruistic.

However this also brings up the practical aspect. Whether manipulation, personally motivated or altruistic it resides on the assumption that the person making the decision knows what is best/better for the other person. In terms of supporting someone in their choices (or similar) this is a null point as you would be acceding to the other person's judgement, also where it has been something that has been discussed. However where choices are made on behalf of someone else without there knowedge or consent it presumes you know better than the other person what is best for them. We do this all the time when it comes to children etc and that's generally acceped that children do not have the requisite knowledge and experience yet to necessarily know this, as well as having developing brains that function from more primitive areas a lot of the time. However when talking about adults this becomes less clear. No matter how much you think you know about someone else you will never be as privy to everything as they are themselves. There will always be all sorts of things you don't know about their past, circumstances, likes, dislikes, goals, objectives, priorities, what they find important or don't care about and so many other things that making the assumtion you know better could be seen as a level of arrogance. The Golden rule used to be "treat others as you would want to be treated yourself" however this has been superceded in a lot of areas by the Platinum Ruleof "treat others as they would want to be treated". Of course working out what that is is something that requires some level of insight, experience, assumption, discussion etc in and of it's self anyway.

Anyway... sermon over... and only my opinion on it anyway, feel free to ignore (which is a bit late to say at the end but hey ho)

[Deleted Member]

First rule of BDSM is consent. The word manipulate implies there is no consent. While the idea of selfish selflessness sounds beneficial for all, I think we should keep the two separated. Idky but the term kinda sounds similar to the framework of unsolicited advice. It's given to help others and make us feel as if we are supporting them but it can definitely backfire.
I think just being a good person and giving encouragement to others already kinda gives back to us. No strings attached.

[Mg****]

Wel im believer/follower in the the cosmic ideology

Creativity is the independent thinking that constantly wants to change something in one's own living conditions or those of others.  It is creativity, the *** urge for happiness, that endlessly drives people on to more and more and better.  There are two kinds of creativity, the material and the immaterial.  The first is the individual striving to improve one's own living conditions.  It focuses mainly on the fields of sex, property and power.  It is the cause of the misery on this planet.  The individuality expresses itself in egocentricity, greed and assertiveness.  In the pursuit of a material goal, man experiences the satisfaction of his own creativity, but in the achievement of a goal he does not experience lasting satisfaction because the goal turns out to be relative, only an object of comparison with regard to what others have.  He continues to hunt for another goal, usually a higher income or a higher position, and he continues to hunt because that is the only thing he needs to derive satisfaction from.  But the moment comes when he can no longer hunt due to aging or illness and then his world collapses and he spends the rest of his life dissatisfied with himself.  He has not understood that he has only been chasing an ever receding mirage above the desert of materialism.p

 In contrast, the immaterial creativity, your “Christian love”, gives a lasting experience of happiness.  It is the individual striving to improve the living conditions of others.  This kind of creativity is directed away from man, from the material to higher values.  It expresses itself in: helpfulness, compassion, pity, interest, tolerance, kindness, appreciation, admiration, in short, in the total, all-encompassing concept: unselfish love......

Our interest is solely focused on love, knowledge, beauty and happiness of others. Their happiness drive is selfless and never self-centered. They consider it a particularly antisocial act to think of oneself. The individual urge for happiness has been transplanted onto the fellow human being: Others think about my happiness in life, I only think about that of others.

This ideology has a lot more nd it solve a lot of problems we are having today and it get things done that in the past have been tried but failed just because of the selfishness (narcissism)....

Today the world it's a social cesspool of narcissism.

Cosmic law knows no punishment, but it dictates with an iron hand the consequences of human behavior. And those are very severe. Selfishness punishes itself. And how.

All previous generations live on in you as a direct personality facet. They are part of your own 'I'. They themselves again share in all the misery in this world as you will in all future misery and again and again. You could speak of a collective reincarnation or the rebirth that Christ has spoken to you about. A world that knows only material creativity is self-destructing.