Religions and philosophies say we are selfless by nature.
Helping others gives us fulfilment and peace. But what about helping ourselves?
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins believes we are born selfish.
This raises the question 👇
Are we selfish when we break others’ hearts for our own happiness or peace?
I have been asking that question from myself for years.
The me vs others puzzle is a tough one, specially for empathetic people.
From conforming to societal expectations to isolating myself for years, I've been through both alleys.
I found they both don’t bring lead to inner peace. They are not sustainable.
In this essay, I'll take you on a journey of self-discovery and then break it down in three stages I went through to end the selfish vs selfless battle inside me.
A bumpy ride…
Growing up, I was like any other kid.
Obeyed everybody. Conformed to societal expectations. Followed the crowd. Did what I was told to do.
I was living in anarchy: Should I do what I want or what others want of me?
I never wanted to break someone’s heart.
But the cost of doing this was my inner peace.
It went like this:
If I chose myself, it hurt others which killed me from inside.
If I did what they wanted, it hurt me. Because I neglected myself.
In both cases, I was the one who gets to feel bad. 🤔
I realized 👇
Caring too much about others results in stress and self doubt. I have no control over how they feel or think about my actions.
It got me thinking — why do I even do that?
A big bubble burst.
I was too confined by society.
Doubting myself and feeling ashamed for things I couldn’t control was drilled into me as a kid in school and home.
A wrong belief was taught to me 👇
Being selfish is a bad thing.
Any selfish act / activity was directly linked to my identity.
Consider the difference between…
You are selfish
This act of yours is selfish
Upon realizing this, next step was to unlearn this idea.
To break free, I had to do the exact things I was not supposed to do. 🙈
The plan was to find what I truly want and do just that.
Didn’t go well with loved ones so I got cancelled.
The next phase
This is where I chose to isolate myself and live alone.
It allowed me to see myself in a new light.
At first, I begun hating the world around me. But as I went deeper, I started to realize I was consumed with self-absorption.
My arrogance and ego reached a height and build too much pride.
Fortunately, I experienced more setbacks and began to shame myself for failing too often. (Another dark place to be.)
As if I had taken the job of others.
But I soon figured 👇
When we shame ourselves, we steal the job from others.
It’s their business to shame and doubt me, not mine.
Eventually, I decided to let go of control. Embraced the environment I had once detested — to try again, learn from mistakes, and improve myself.
As I took a closer look, I started seeing my own problems.
It finally made sense why the me vs others puzzle never fit.
I learned that to change something, I needed to change myself first.
As I learned to empathize and forgive myself for past mistakes, I developed a newfound appreciation for everything around me, both living and non-living.
I realized my network was always my net worth. Began to listen to the people around me, while also seeking to understand the greater good in every situation.
It was a long journey, but I discovered balance was the key to fit the puzzle and finding inner peace.
I cant please people constantly.
But I cant be a self-absorbed ass all the time.
And saying no often doesn’t make me selfish.
This realization increased the number of times I felt at peace, which is something I had been seeking for a long time.
I hope this story makes sense and helps you think of peace differently.
Interested in diving deeper? Keep reading as we break down the story in the next section.
What actually happened
I went through three key phases.
Society-confined
Self-confined
Balance
Let’s go through each.
1. Society-confined
To start our journey towards inner peace, we must first understand how society shapes our lives.
Society means any person, institution, or authority outside you.
It’s factory where self doubt is made and sold.
Anything idea that’s not yours is theirs.
If you're born into a middle-class family like mine, you probably started life in this phase.
Log Kya Kahengay is the motto of everyone round you.
When that happens, you're shaped by the norms and expectations of society.
You struggle to decide what to do and this leads to a constant state of war with either yourself or others.
For example…
Boss orders to lie for profit
You hate being a liar
School requires you to wear uniform
You love hanging in shortsPartner demands to move to a new city
You enjoy where you areParents expect you to study medicine
You dream to become a cricketer
Let’s differentiate.
You 👉 hate, love, enjoy, dream
Society 👉 orders, requires, demands, expects
What actually happens in above situations, we feel torn between our own values and the expectations of our community.
It’s like you're a puzzle piece trying to fit in a sock — not the right spot!
Remember the time you wore that embarrassing dress just to fit in?
Yeah, that's Society-confined and it’s a prison.
Here’s the problem 👇
We grow up conforming to expectations of our families, friends, and culture.
We take on their beliefs and values without questioning whether they are right for us. Without investigating if they ever asked these questions themselves.
This creates a sense of tension between who you are and who you should be, leading to anxiety, self-doubt, and lack of direction.
But if we are sincere in our quest of inner peace, we need to break free from these expectations. Time to think, question, and decide for ourselves.
Here’s what can be done 👇
Start questioning your beliefs, opinions, and values. Are they truly yours, or are they something you've acquired from those around you?
Choose one thing that you truly love but society rejects. Get obsessed and do exactly that. Don’t care if you fail, that’s where all the fun is.
Step outside of your comfort zone. Move to a new city. Live alone. Trying new things is the only way to discover what truly makes you happy.
If fear of failure or embarrassment scares you, tell yourself ‘it’s an opportunity of self-discovery, you dummy.’ More here.
If you succeed in breaking the chains of society, you develop a new sense of self.
But if you fail or experience some pain or loss in the process, that’s when shit gets interesting. 🤓
You’d want shoulders of friends or loved ones, but there’s hardly one. Or none.
Not a soul who understands your blunders like a human.
They forget the fact 👇
No matter how old, we are all doing this life shit for the first time.
That’s why things break and mistakes happen.
Mishaps that lead to disasters may corner you into isolation, which is never bad for short periods of time.
But longer, your chances of becoming the next Unabomber or Bin Ladin rises. And that brings us to our next step.
2. Self-Confined
Think of it as self-imposed isolation, cutting off from the world to confront your reality and emotions.
Similar to Buddhist monks seeking solitude to examine oneself.
When living independently, you become aware of your own values.
For example, when you start living alone, you realize where YOU prefer to keep the towels and which spot suits YOU best for shoes. Before this point in life, you never thought about these preferences.
Similarly, when you look inside yourself, you realize just like the universe outside, there is another inside you.
A tangled mystery to be resolved. As you peel layer over layer, you develop your unique view of truth.
You start hating everything else as you learn about your true potential. In a matter of time, you’re self absorbed.
As you explore and express yourself, you may lose some people but put yourself in path of the right ones.
The best example of the self-confined phase is an artist who isolates themselves to find inspiration but becomes self-absorbed and thinks they are perfect.
But that’s far from reality. Upon exhibition, their art is revealed to be mediocre. In this case, the artist is a victim of self-confinement.
The bounds of society are replaced by bounds of his own making. 🙈
Being a lion, but too focused on yourself to see around is a hefty mistake in the jungle.
So you probably fail. Again.
When the bubble of self bursts...
Flaws get revealed.
As you start falling down, you notice holes in your own foundation.
A bitter experience but also a time for deep introspection.
If shame and guilt eats you, master the art of self-compassion.
Don’t fall in the pit of distractions to avoid reality. Instead take the route of radical acceptance.
Trigger introspection by getting away from the noise. Get isolated to reflect back.
It's about getting to know yourself on a deeper level and accepting both your strengths and weaknesses.
Mentally, your goal is to reach a point where silence becomes the music you seek.
There you begin to listen. And see beyond your barriers.
At this point, you have seen both sides of the coin.
It’s easier for you to understand that its not you vs them. It always us.
You cant be selfish or selfless. Both lead to dead ends of inner peace.
The key is…
Balance
The third phase where we want to stay the most. It’s where the selfish vs selfless puzzle gets solved.
Leads to inner peace but balancing this seesaw is hard work.
Let’s make it easy.
Understand that both cannot happen simultaneously.
When you’re selfish, you can’t help / please.
When selfless, you can’t complain.
Realize this 👇
You can choose to be selfish or selfless in each moment.
Let go of the idea that being selfish is bad — it’s not.
Don’t be afraid of it, you’re not choosing it for life.
It’s not a matter of your identity. It’s not who you are.
Prove it to yourself by measuring how many times you were selfish or selfless in a day.
Here’s how both are necessary for inner peace.
Being selfish allows you to focus on yourself
Being selfless contributes to your fulfillment
The idea of balance can be seen as a kind of dance. To find harmony and fulfillment, you must move gracefully between the two aspects of peace — choosing yourself & making others happy.
This paradigm shift allows you to open your heart and welcome everybody inside your deep universe.
Finding this balance dilutes your ego and you view all nature as one family.
In this state, you see ahead than your self.
As you gradually acquire balance, you can feel the winds of peace inside you.
Here are signs of success:
Your become empathetic
Start forgiving yourself and others
You stop doubting / shaming yourself
Love becomes your strategy of everything
Giving (instead of taking) becomes your goal
Think of yourself as a tree, rooted in the ground. First you soak sunlight to grow yourself, only then you can give shelter to others. And maybe fruit too.
To conclude…
Just like a ropewalker maintains balance to stay on track, so too must we cultivate balance to avoid falling into extremes of self-doubt and arrogance.
Accept that being selfish and selfless both are in your nature. But you can be one thing at a time.
That’s it for today.