At What Point Does Altruistic Behavior Go So Far That Self-Interest Must Replace It?
Selfishness isn’t always a bad thing— especially when you’re such a giving, caring person that it starts to cause more harm than good in your life.
If you’re the type of person who will do anything for your friends, family, girlfriend or boyfriend — hell, if you’re willing to go out of your way to give some homeless guy $5, knowing damn well it’s the last $5 you have, then this might be the article for you.
Altruism is our way of life — We’re people pleasers.
There’s nothing wrong with being altruistic. Society would be far better off if we had more people who were selfless, charitable, dependable, and all-around just good-natured towards each other.
Although, that’s not the type of person I am, not exactly. There’s a difference between being a good person and always putting the needs of others above your own.
One is healthy, the others not. Imagine that!
You see, I’m a textbook people pleaser and I have always put others before myself. Sure, there are far worse things you can be in life than overly kind, but if you’re not mindful of your own needs, eventually you’ll cross a line, which on the other side of it lies the unhealthy type of altruism.
Once across, you go from being a generous, empathetic person, to a self-conscious people-pleaser who will always feel let down by others.
Trust me, I know of this feeling first hand.
One of the reasons you’ll start to feel let down and unloved by people is because they don’t come running to your aid or tend to your every need as you do for them. They might truly love you, not knowing that deep down you’re doubting their love because they don’t seem to care about you as much as they should. In your point of view of course.
Then it progresses into something more, something much worse. Some of those people you’re constantly helping will be among the first to exploit this trait they see in you.
Trust me, even if you hadn’t noticed what you are, others have, and some are already taking advantage of it. When certain types of people sense what they interpret as a weakness in you, a weakness they can use to their advantage, you’ll find that they naturally gravitate towards you.
And you towards them. Because as sick as it sounds, you enjoy the constant need to fix what’s broken in them. you thrive off of the thrill you get when you help them solve the numerous life problems they have stacking up.
If you’re anything like me, then the odds are that you’ll relate to what I just said.
There’s a common misconception that people-pleasers are only women; that’s not true. It might be that they’re more common among women, but here I sit, writing this, and as far as I can tell. . .
Yep, still a male.
Anyway, that’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what you are or who you are, we all can suffer the same way — in silence. I won’t go as far as to say I’ve found the solution to the problem, but I did find a way to be able to cope with it and not have it ruin my life and my relationships.
What follows is my attempt to explain to you how I did this, but first, I have a confession to make.
So, I’m not the best writer and I veer off topic entirely too much. At times, once I reread what I wrote, I feel as though it could be 2 or 3 different stories.
This always causes me to edit, cut, copy then paste to start another article. Then that one becomes two more and the snowball effect gets going and next thing I know there are 30 drafts in the editor, but I haven't published a single thing in weeks.
Recently I came to the conclusion that this isn’t a weakness in my writing ability. Instead, it’s simply how I express myself and my thoughts. I can’t write out listicle articles with all my headers and subheaders lined up in perfect order.
I might jump around with topics, but they’re all relevant and make sense in a strange way, like when you finally see the puzzle that you put together in its entirety.
But, at first, when you were still building it, there were sections that you tried to visualize, thinking: “What the hell is this part?”
Then you found a few missing pieces and realized it’s just another window. One of many, which belonged to a tiny house in the village nestled among the cliffs, overlooking a beautiful Italian cove.
I hope you can finish this puzzle of a story — good luck.
Is it me, or is it my perception?
One day I realized that I give, and give, and give. . .
Except, when it’s me who needs help, it seems like no one ever comes. Or do I just feel that way?
Sure, there are people in my life who I can depend on to be there for me in a pinch. It just feels like when I do need someone's help, I always end up feeling like a burden to them after I ask.
Maybe it is just in my head, but I swear it seems like they’re upset when you ask for help moving a couch to a new apartment. Or that one time when you’re short on a bill and you’ve tried everything to come up with the cash but you can’t, so you ask to borrow some money.
In both scenarios (in my case at least) they said yes.
The couch was moved and my car payment was made. Yet, I felt like the biggest burden in the world to my friend and his brother when they came to help me move my couch with their truck. I felt the same when my cousin lent me the $268 to make my car payment.
Am I imagining this? Is it perhaps my own guilt that is making me think they’re annoyed at me by asking them for their help?
Before you consider the answer to that, here’s the caveat.
I’ve helped that same friend with different things so many times that I’ve lost count. I helped him and his entire family, (7 people all living in a single house), move not once, but three times!
The amount of cash I’ve lent to my cousin (among others) could’ve opened a food bank in downtown LA by now!
Not really, but I wanted to make a cool analogy. . .
So then, why should I feel like a burden? I mean, I help them all the time. Anything they ask of me I do without question, without complaint. Yet, when I need something, oftentimes I can’t get ahold of those same people.
That just reinforces the negative self-talk that I’m a burden. Then it starts to push darker thoughts into my head.
“I’ll never answer their call again! I hope they’re in a terrible situation again, then try calling me and begging me to bail them out.” — See what happens.
Then I have to stop, take a step back, and reorient my thinking.
“Wait, I’m not that type of person.” “What if the reason they’re not answering is that something bad happened?”
Remember who you are — Never compromise that for anyone
That’s not me. I’m not the type of person who secretly keeps a tally of the “good deeds” they’ve done for you, ready to use them against you to persuade you in the event you say: “I can’t do it this time, I’m sorry.”
I’d rather be a people pleaser than the type of person who secretly doesn’t care for anyone and will only help you if they think there is something to gain from it, or they expect something in return in the future.
Tit for Tat as they say over there in England. I have no idea if that even made sense, but it felt right.
I’m finding it to be a lot harder than I expected to express what I wanted to in this article. I keep feeling that words on paper, or in this case words on a screen, can’t portray the full depth of the meaning behind my words.
Selfishness can be good and it can be bad — It’s up to you to decide
Being selfish is a horrible trait. Pure and simple. I could write an entire article about the historical importance of what being selfish, or selfless, can do to a society, but I’ll save that for later.
It suffices to say that selfishness has the ability to wipe out an entire population of humans.
If one tribe kills a woolly mammoth, but their neighbors (probably not neighbors as we use the term today, but still) fails to get one, things can get bad for them real quick unless they share with each other. If the tribe with the mammoth decides not to share, then the others will likely freeze to death, due to lack of fur clothing, or die from hunger.
The ones who survived and didn’t die from the obvious reasons, (a lack of a protein source and protection from the elements), will die an even slower death unless their neighbors learn to show compassion.
Our ancestors knew the ivory tusks were invaluable, for they made the best tips for the spears they used to hunt and catch food with.
No tusks = No good spears, tools, or trade items.
Of course, there were other methods of making spear tips. Some were even more desirable, like obsidian, but this isn’t a history lesson.
Too many missing pieces to see the bigger picture of the puzzle
The moral of this story is that living an altruistic life doesn’t guarantee you the satisfaction and contentment you’d think it would, but that’s not an excuse to live a life of selfishness and greed.
You have to find the balance somewhere in the middle. Something that doesn’t drain you or cause you to become the victim, yet at the same time leaves you with compassion and the empathy to care about what happens to your neighbors.
Our species wouldn’t have evolved if we never cared for each other. If we killed off our neighbors because of greed, eventually there wouldn’t be enough of us left to continue mating and we’d have gone extinct thousands of years ago.
It’s up to you to find a balance that you can live with.
Clearly, my mind isn’t made up. I titled this article to imply that it’s time to start taking better care of ourselves and quit worrying about the needs of others.
Yet, here I am towards the end of the story preaching about the importance of sharing woolly mammoths so that our species wouldn’t go extinct.
Although, ironically, it’s kind of perfect that this story somehow turned to the topic of human evolution and the ancient behaviors of Neanderthals.
Perhaps this all boils down to genetics or perhaps it’s learned behavior through watching out parents and adult role models when growing up. Who knows, but ultimately you’ll either turn out to be more of an empathetic person or more of the lone wolf type. A one-man/one-woman army.
That’s a polite way of saying. . . selfish?
Idk, but I think I just dropped the ball in regards to this article. I had something profound here, then I go and shit the bed with the conclusion.
Let’s try that again, shall we?
Better Conclusion — Seeing the whole picture
Although some people think that living an altruistic life will bring them greater happiness and a sense of fulfillment, an altruistic life does not guarantee the satisfaction that you would expect from living a life that puts the needs of society above your own.
You have to find a balance that works for you and, more importantly, is healthy for you.
Empathy and compassion are far better traits to have than their opposites. Still, there’s a limit to how much you can help others before you drain yourself of the very things you’re trying to give.
Always remember that you can’t help people unless you take care of yourself first. If you give away every meal to someone who needed it more than you, all you’d accomplish is prolonging the agony of the pair of you. Once you died from starvation from giving away all your food, the person who depended upon those meals wouldn’t last much longer after you were gone.
I’m not saying that you have to be selfish in a literal sense. What I’m trying to say is. . . umm. . .
How about we wrap this up with another AA metaphor? It worked in my last article.
My wisened old AA sponsor told me that I had to put my sobriety above everything else in my life. I had to give recovery more attention than my own kids, than my family, my job, everything. I didn’t understand what he meant at first.
Honestly, I thought he was some sort of sociopath or something.
Then one day it clicked and I understood. I had to put my sobriety above everything else because without it, I had nothing. if I was using drugs and alcohol again, would I really be there for my family?
No, I wouldn’t.
Always make sure you are taking care of your needs as well as the needs of others.
Thanks for reading this mess of a puzzle that I call an article.
If you enjoyed my unorthodox attempt at giving advice, then you should check out this article as well. It’s about the mind and how the power of thought is one of the biggest factors in determining your success in life.
