Selfish versus Selfless

We can all relate to that person or people in our lifes that have been and shown nothing but selfish attributes, and on the flip side can point out those that are selfless.  We have labelled people these things due to experiences and perhaps you havent looked at this from your own prospective as to how will people deem you as being. 

Does being selfish have to be a bad things?  Do we all have to live in a selfless world?  Or can we create harmony of both?

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Great NEW's my  New book 'What's Stopping you? Make that hard decision today!" is now available.  Check it out on Amazon and my site click here

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#podcast #lifestyle #religious

Transcript

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Its Selina Davis host of butt naked wisdom. If this is your first time coming to my podcast, welcome, I'm so happy to have you here. Just a little bit about myself. I am a mother of five amazing children, a wife, an entrepreneur, a mentor and an author. Yes, life has done life on me. And I birthed out a book. And the book itself is called what's stopping you make that hard decision today. And the reason why I wrote that book, like many of us, we go through so much in life, and we find at points in our lives that we are stuck, stuck in hurdles of the same old things or cycles of the same things never changing. And what I found is there are certain questions that we tend not to ask ourselves in order for us to move forward. So this book is really about helping you with some of those direct questions, and providing practical, accountable steps for you to move forward. So this book is available on Amazon right now. ebook version, or as a paperback. The link is down below in the description. I would love for you to grab a copy and look forward to speaking to you on the episode coming up. Hey, its your girl, Selina Davis host of butt naked wisdom, we are back with another episode. And today we will be looking at selfishness versus selflessness that selfish versus selfless. So I hope that this is a topic that you will be interested in. I think it's one of those topics that you can see yourself, either fallen into one or the other, or you definitely know somebody who you would deem as being selfish. And someone who would say is more selfless. So let's start with some definitions. I think it's really important to really understand what the words actually mean, I've been learning over the last few years of just reading more, that sometimes our real realistic perception of a word really isn't what the word actually means. And it's also being formed due to our experiences on set subject. So the definition for self, fish nurse is, is of a person or an action, or a motive, lacking consideration for others, concerned chiefly with one owns a personal profit or pleasure. Now looking at self less as a definition, and as a word is concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than the ones of own. So very, in a nutshell, deemed as someone who is thus not considering themselves, but more thinking about somebody, obviously, the con, the the flip side of that is somebody who isn't selfless and is selfish. And in that respect, they're not selfish in any way. So really looking at that. And as you know, we also really like to bring a perspective from the Bible as well, because I am a believer of God. And I'm gonna look into Philippians two, verse three, I believe it is. And it says, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition, or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Another translation. So the first one was a New King James, the other one I'm going to read now is from the CSD version, and it says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition, or conceit, but in humility, think of others as better or more important than yourself. So when you look at these two words, it can bring some emotion and feeling, I will definitely say that I can identify people in my personal life who have shown characteristics of being more selfish, and I definitely can see those who have been more selfless. And it's not that a selfish person is always somebody in the eyes of the world. And the perspective of the narrative that we live in in you know, selfishness is deemed as bad you know, it's a negative thing somebody is you know, only thinking about themselves out for themselves only wants their own personal gain. And a selfish person in essence is somebody who is like this Yes person always do for other people. You know, you only think about selflessness. You tend to think of Sort of your philanthropist and those that care for the community and are looking into the community on how they can change things, etc, etc. So there is kind of this notion that a selfish person is more negative, and it has a negative connotation. And a selfless person is more on the positive side, I think there is a balance between the two. And I think sometimes before in two of the extreme, so we're either really selfish, or we are totally selfless. And we forget ourselves. And I don't think there's anything wrong with being sort of mutually balanced and in harmony between the two, because somebody who is selfish, you know, their main concern and consideration is themselves and how it profits themselves or their pleasures doesn't directly mean a bad thing. And it really just depends on the perspective in which the person is coming in. And I'm not saying this as a blanket thing for every person that is selfish, there are definitely people that are selfish, that constantly think about themselves do not do anything out of their own selfish desires, whether it's monetary, whether it's pleasure, whether whatever it might be in relationships, you definitely can feel that sense that somebody is either always constantly talking about themselves thinking about themselves, you know, putting themselves and what they need, and what they want as a priority. And everything else is secondary. When you look at somebody who is selfless, you're looking at somebody who is constantly always thinking about others, always looking at how can I help? What can I do for you, can I do this and some, most of the time is not something that is vocally spoken is just more of action. So you will tend to see them, you know, whether you're in a community environment, they're always out, they're always doing that you know about others how they're feeling, making sure others are, are doing well and are okay. So these kinds of people are more action outward towards other people. And the flip side of being self less is that you also tend to think about self. And that's really where I want this conversation to come to, I want us to really understand that. I myself, personally, I would definitely say, a huge part of my life a large part of my life, I have been more of a selfless person, I have had this notion of always wanting to do for others. And that's in every aspect of my life, I am like the last in a totem pole of thought thinking or wanting to do, I tend to have this guilt of not wanting to do stuff for myself, before I do it for other people. And obviously, that leans towards being a mother and also thinking about your kids and doing things for them. And if you have relationships, always thinking about the best and the wellness of other people or posts yourself. And I haven't thought about myself and I left myself somewhere in this motion of life where I literally have neglected self. And I've realized that I do need to learn to prioritize myself in different aspects of my life, because I think it's really important to have that harmony that I do still need to be cared for, I still do need to have focus, I still do need to have time, I still need to make sure I'm well. Because ultimately, if I'm not in a place where I'm well, I'm happy inside really being the best for anybody. And to be honest, at the end of my life cycle, whenever that is ending, whenever God decides that to be, I may not be happy, I may not be that person that has ultimately, you know, enjoyed life. Now others may have a different perspective on how they would view me as a human being. And they may see that, you know, Selena was, you know, supportive, and she's been there. And she's a great listener and all of this kind of different attributes. But on the flip side, when I'm alone, and no one is there for me, how do I ultimately feel? And how do I perceive my life in its current state? And that's the question those are the hard questions that are really important and, and I would say that it's the same for someone who is selfish because when you are constantly only thinking about yourself, and you may not even know you're doing this, but it's basically in your operations and how you do things in your motives. And I'm saying in your motors because you may be someone that does stuff for yourself first and then others after or you help other people With the motive that you're going to make sure that majority of what you're doing is for yourself. And, you know, ultimately your life and cycle maybe that you are also lonely because you don't think about other people and you haven't been supportive. And no, I'm really concerned that, you know, he was there for me, and he supported me or she supported me, and they were there for me. And, you know, she was a great listener, and she was there when I needed her. But on the flip side, there may say, you know, I really did get to know the person when I needed help, unfortunately, they weren't there for me or he, and that could be an emotional, physical, you know, in time, etc, etc. So, I think you know, how we put these two things into perspective, it's really, really important. I don't believe that one should be above the other, I definitely feel that we should not have a selfish ambition, ambition, that wholly and solely focuses on ourselves. And I say that, because when you believe in God, and you believe in love, love ultimately is about other people. And you want to be able to demonstrate that love to others, which means that you will have to have an element inside of you that is selfless, because you are thinking about other people. Now, my motive for thinking about other people is that I'm helping other people. But I also know that I'm doing what is the right thing to do, and I want to be able to do that. And I don't feel bad about doing it. And I don't feel sad, or, you know, guilty for doing those things. And then I also know that as I do for you, I'm going to also take some time for myself and not feel guilty for it. And not feel guilty for shutting down or not feel guilty for taking an excursion for a couple of days by myself or, you know, shutting down in terms of just spending time for yourself, and it could be an hour, it could be in the bar for the shower, or it could be going for a walk. You know, there are many different ways that we can cultivate an area of self into our lives, I don't think it should be selflessness, it hould be self into our lives so hat we can have a great armonious balance between being ble to love and serve and be here for other people, when in urn, we can also be there for urselves and ultimately want to e able to, you know, have an nvironment where we are nviting others to be selfless owards us. So most of the time, hose people that are selfless, re always about other people, ther people and they're not eally, they don't really know his, but they may not be open or others to be selfless owards them. Because they don't now how to receive it or they on't feel that they're worthy o receive it or they don't feel s if they deserve to receive omebody else's help assistance, ove whatever it might be, they on't believe that they are orthy to have that in return. o it's really important that we ee this in checks and balances nd that we are humble in our in ur perspective of life and our erspective of who we are. ecause I think that's the only ay that you're going to really ruly understand where you sit ithin this spectrum. And like I aid, there's always this onnotation that a selfish erson is a horrible person or vil or just thinking about hemselves. And this selfless erson is someone who is a iver, and community and you now just about other people, I ust think there is a great way o contain some balance in self, nd lessness being the love of thers, but also the love owards yourself, too. So I hink there's a great way to ave that balance. I hope in ome way this has helped you ind of put this into erspective. And like I said, we ive in a world where we always ave to have things in, you now, categories and in buckets. nd a lot of the time we ategorize people based on xperiences, rather than looking t how am I contributing to the orld that we're living in to he surroundings, to my friends, o my family, you know, how am I ontributing to those nvironments, and if any part of e is not towards other people, nd other people don't feel as f I am there for them, then t's really important that we eflect and take some time to be ble to analyze ourselves so hat we can definitely grow to e amazing people that are more armonious in our growth in life hat we work towards who we were reated to be and to really find hat balance within our lives. o I hope that this has helped ou in some way. It definitely s one of the areas that we have been dealing with for a lot of our lives, whether we're at school, in our work, relationship, environments, family, etc. And we're very quick to label people in these particular categories. So I think it's really important that we look into them. So I hope that this has blessed you. I've enjoyed speaking about it. I hope you've enjoyed listening. I look forward to speaking to you again on our next episode, and have an amazing rest of your day week. Wherever you want are and where ever you're doing right now be blessed. God bless you and speak to you soon.