How selflessness has brought me happiness.

Submitted by Andrew on Tue, 11/18/2008 - 8:12pm

It has been awhile since I last posted, life happens. I have noticed recently how things have been going so smoothly in my daily life. A couple years ago it was not like this, I had a void, something wasn't right, and something was missing. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I now know what it was, why it was causing these problems, and how I came to cope with it. This can be of a great help to most but may be difficult to get used to at first. To introduce myself; I naturally have these characteristics:

good intentions
a short temper
passionate/extreme personality (all or nothing approach)
jack of all trades
start lots of projects and rarely finish any of them
selfish
can hyper focus on subjects that are of interest and excel at them at a faster rate than most

I have only shared characteristics relevant to the subject so please don’t try to sum me up by only reading this article. Now some of these are good and some bad, all of them can make life a real hassle if I don't recognize them and cope. For twenty years I lived by those and they created a lot of very tough, uncomfortable, sometimes violent, sometimes depressing, and rarely happy and satisfying situations. A key characteristic that I bolded was “selfish”, selfishness is a bad trait and something many people these days either have or acquire. Selfishness is how most of the negative heart wrenching situations are shaped these days (enron,yahoo,most banks etc), it is the main ingredient in unhappiness.

I no longer have this void, this negative feeling about me, life, and society because I try not to focus on my views towards them much, at least on a personal level. You see, my type of personality thrives on selfishness, as do many peoples. We only think about what good is in a situation for us, what can you do for me? This outlook is very flawed, it’s not reality. What I have found to be the key to my own peace of mind is helping others and not trying to get something out of it. I try to spend time with family and friends, even if I don’t want to. I try to do something for someone else that might negatively affect me in the short term, possibly even in the long term. There are limits, I still need to look out for my own existence and well-being but usually if my heart is in it and it can be a positive deed for someone else, I will be okay and everything just seems to work itself out. I used to fight this so much thinking that if I wasn’t always trying to get something out of situations other people would get the benefits and I would get the rest. That is not true, there is always enough to go around. I know that as long as I am being a positive influence on somebody’s life, not a negative influence there is nothing to worry about, no guilt, no worry. I can sleep well at night and know that if I died tonight I was able to help someone other than myself. I am not trying to brag or act like I am perfect. I am no saint and far from perfection, but I am taking action and trying to be a benefit to society versus an expense.

I hope this can help motivate some. Still getting used to blogging and writing in proper English. Hope you all have a great week!
--- Andrew