New Headline: Red Kool Aid Renamed "It's all about me"

Over the past few months, I've been thinking alot about selfishness. Specifically, I've been thinking about how, basically, I am honestly, insatiably (sp?), pathetically, ridiculously selfish. I know that we all are, but somehow I have a hard time really believing that anyone in my immediate vicinity is as self-serving as I am....on a GOOD day! When do I really put myself out there and take chances for other people and on other people's behalf. When do I REALLY sacrifice? I do what I want, when I want. I am completely autonomous. In the words of the great philosopher, Beyonce' Knowles - "I depend on me." That's good, right?

Many of my single friends muse that, the older that we get, the more into routine that we fall, and the more autonomous (but, more importantly, selfish) we become. "It's part of being single," we say, with fear in our glassed-over eyes. Well, I think it sucks. It's emotional purgatory, Y'ALL. It's NOT good - it's bad, and we need to fight it. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with autonomy, acheivement, and being good to yourself (its healthy and necessary, not to mention that automony's evil nemesis, co-dependence, it really quite pathetic.), but that attitude of "It's all about me" - that autonomy "run-amuck" [aka selfishness] kills. In fact, I think almost every incident in my life that I am ashamed of has its route in my own selfishness - but that's just me. Anyway, my big thought is that I've been drinking the Kool Aid too long - selfishness does not keep us in our "happy, safe place", doing what we want to do, living how we want to live - it keeps us from living free and fulfilling lives - it binds. Think about it. ugh! Can't you feel the suck-tion??

Right around my birthday, I attended a seminar on time mgt. at work. I went for the free lunch and comp time, because I've been to several of these in the past. But, for some reason, this one struck a cord. The speaker, instead of helping with work productivity, talked about how many hours in a day that we actually have to spend investing in the important things (yes, work included - as a source of passion and investment in others, of course). SCARY - not much time. I started to think about all of the areas of my life that I could invest in others and GIVE and am just not doing it. My student workers - do I know what's going on in their lives? What test is stressing them out? What they love to do when they're not at work? Have I called my brothers lately? What am I doing about a student that I know is hurting right now? Have I LOVED someone today? Have I TOLD them I loved them? Do I study so freaking much that I neglect actual human relationships (seriously...)? Do I secretly invite all of the freakish studying to excuse myself from doing good, taking risks, sacrificing, and really BEING with others?

I (we, I think) need to quit drinking the "It's all about me"-flavored kool-aid. Face it - when we're done here, no one is going to ask us if we wished we would have done more things to gratify ourselves and pump ourselves up. Life's too short to be selfish. I need to start giving more, risk more, loving more, and make an impact - darn it.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.....1 Corinthians 13: 4-5

Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either. Erich Fromm

Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself. Henry Ward Beecher

One does not get to know that one exists until one rediscovers oneself in others. Goethe