“Sometimes I don’t answer the phone when my mom calls because I don’t always want to talk to her. Does that mean I’m selfish?!”
Though the situations vary, this is a common question most of us have asked ourselves one time or another: Am I selfish?
Mirriam-Webster defines selfish as “concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own well-being without regard for others.”
I found this definition wholly unsatisfying as it left me with more questions then answers: who and what determines exactly what “excessive concern for one’s self is”? How do we know if/when we’re concentrating on our own well-being at the expense of others’ regard? Who are “others,” and are there some who warrant more or less regard? What the heck is “regard” anyway? If another tells us we’re not regarding them, does that then make us selfish?
Ok, enough with the mental boggle. Let me share a perspective that works for me, and might offer you a bit of food for thought on this topic.
First let’s clarify what selfish is and is not.
Selfish is not a feeling. We may have a thought that we “feel selfish,” but it’s not an actual emotion.
Selfish is also not an action or a state of being. You may decide a certain action is “selfish,” or you may believe someone is a selfish person, but there is no objective standard of selfish. Though there may be societal norms, your definition and mine would diverge somewhere along the spectrum.
Selfish is a thought (ie. “I’m selfish,” “you’re selfish,” “humans are selfish,” “Aunt Irma is selfish.” These are all thoughts.
The brain likes to believe it knows what’s what; what’s right and wrong, selfish or unselfish, but ultimately these are all completely subjective interpretations based on one’s beliefs.
Now let’s return to the example of the person who’s afraid that not answering her mom’s calls means she’s selfish (for simplicity sake, I’m using a female pronoun). She could ask the question of 10 people and likely get 10 different answers because without a universal objective standard, it’s really up to her (more pointedly, her thoughts) to make the determination.
If you’re now asking, “But where does she start & how does she make this kind of determination!?,” then you’ll want to keep reading, because this is a topic clearly worth your own personal investigation.
Continuing with this example, I’m going to offer how I might approach her dilemma and invite you to apply it in your own situation next time you find yourself wondering if you’re selfish.
Step one is to uncover the emotions motivating her actions (to answer or not to answer). In other words, is she answering the call because she wants to feel something positive, as in “I want to connect with mom; I want to feel close to her.” If so, this would lead to feeling love or connection. Or is she picking up the call to avoid feeling a negative emotion, as in “I should answer the phone, because otherwise I’m being selfish.” In this case, she’s trying not to think she’s selfish and avoid feeling guilty or ashamed or something like that.
If her motivation is the latter, then her reason for answering mom’s calls is not about her mom at all, because there’s no genuine desire to connect to her mom. The real reason is to keep herself from thinking she’s selfish and avoid feeling guilty. And based on her initial question, this is what she thinks of as being unselfish.
With this new understanding of her own actions, emotions and definitions, she can now assess whether this is serving her and her relationship with her mom. If not, she can circle back and re-define selfish and unselfish for herself in a more conscious, deliberate way. To initiate this process, I would invite her to start with some self-reflective questions such as these:
- What if answering the phone in order to avoid feeling bad about herself is actually an act of excessive concern for herself and not out of regard for her mother?
- Is it possible that answering her mom’s calls only when she wants to connect with her could be the more selfless act?
Now it’s your turn for some self-reflection: What is your definition of selfish and unselfish? How do you know when you’re selfish or unselfish? Under what conditions do you decide you’re selfish? When you think you’re selfish, what do you do or not do? How do you show up with yourself; others? What results do you create for yourself?
