Analysis of an issue on Selfishness in selfless service

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Topic: Analysis of an issue on Selfishness in selfless service
PostFri Oct 30, 2009 8:31 am
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Human nature dictates that every action, no matter how selfless it appears, is inspired by a selfish reason.

Any act that is perceived as a selfless act generally has benefits, that are unconventional and hence are not perceivable by ordinary people. The human mentality is to do something only when there is some benefit in doing that. Some benefits are monetary, while some others are spiritual.

To support my argument, let me quote the example of a leader who is looked at as someone who selflessly fought to get independece for his nation. It is none other than Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi of India. M.K.Gandhi fought for the independence of India from the British. But before he started the independence movement, he worked as a barrister in South Africa, and presumably had no motives to lead his countrymen towards independence. But an incident during a train travel, when he was given a second rated treatment as against that given to someone from British origin, he felt hurt. This incident inspired him to lead his country towards independence from the British colonists. I doubt if M.K.Gandhi would have got the same level of inspiration by seeing similar incident happening to a south african native whom he wasn't acquainted to. Though lots of his acts later were selfless, there had been a selfish motive to prove that he by nationality isn't inferior to anyone, that sparked the selfless journey.

On the other hand, if we take the example of Mother Teresa, who served to rehabilitate the lives of orphan kids in a foreign country, the benefit is spiritual. She moved in to India, from a different country, to serve the needy, which looks absolutely selfless. But the force that drove her were the satisfaction of serving humanity and happiness in bringing a smile on the faces of needy. Those are the benefits that she got out of doing that act.

Most people term an act selfless if there is no monetary or publicity oriented benefits in the act. But there could be more kinds of benefits which appeal to a few people. Human brain is trained to do something to gain something. It is the lack of understanding of the benefit a person gets by doing an act, that makes the act selfless.
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