To Be Or Not To Be.. Selfish?

All humans are designed to be selfish and look after their own needs above everyone else's. The degree of selfishness varies from person to person; from downright backstabbing crazy, to subtle sabotaging and manipulation to get their own way, everyone's out there to get things done for themselves.  Hard as it is to admit, we are a selfish race. We were selfish when we were evolving, which is why we evolved in the first place. Nature's rules are clear. The fittest survives. To invoke the well known quote : "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.", human race advanced and survived for all these years because we were selfish. We learned how to stay away from predators or how to kill them. More than that, humans learned to kill humans when they were a danger to their own selves. Selfishness, which might be considered a subset of our survival spirit is the reason why we are where we are; which includes being the most advanced species on the planet and also the species which is causing the most harm to the planet.

If you've read Ayn Rand's books, they're all about the concept of objectivity. She touches upon a lot of subjects, one of which is how selflessness and not selfishness is driving the world into tatters. Although her points may be far too cynical, they have value. In our present society, we are taught to look upon any service given to us as a gift and we are taught to being grateful to that person for giving us the service (despite paying for it). A lot of it stems from the fact that most people perceive their job to be a necessary tool to survive and not to live. If everyone genuinely cared about what they were doing, completing the job would be a thankless deed. If you really love doing something, doing that thing becomes a necessity; an act that you must, and I cannot emphasize this 'must' enough, carry out to put your soul at rest. If everyone does what they really love, completing their task would be the most important thing in this world and society would fall into place. This is easier said than done because there is always a fine line between passionate and obsessed and many people slide into obsessed causing them to do things which might not be good for society. That's why Rand's philosophy turns out to be a little too out there.

And there's the other side of the spectrum. Selflessness. One of my complaints with selflessness is how misused that term really is. Any deed classified as selfless, when deeply analysed will have an ulterior motive of the said self. Very few acts are truly selfless because it takes a lot of stomach to do something selfless. I think the most pure form of selflessness is when you know that doing that particular act will harm you but it will benefit that opposite person. That is what I feel is a selfless act. On a different note, isn't it funny how being selfless requires some kind of self assurance? 

So then to be or not to be? The key to all this is balance. Be too selfish, and you're just a rotten person spoiling the earth with your stupid presence. Be too selfless, and the world will trample all over you. Have selective people, be selfless for them. Always look out for yourself. Because if you don't love yourself, nobody else will.

P.S - Trying these types of argumentative pieces instead of creative pieces.