Brain Dump | Morning Musings

Live for yourself and yourself only.

While being selfless is a good things,the world is also filled with ungrateful ass bitches. They are those that only knows how to take without giving back. The ones that tries to take advantage of your kindness. More often than not, it's quite a disadvantage these days to be an altruist, to be selfless and just prioritizing the needs and well-being of others. Some of us learned a little too late points finger at self.

Welcome to my brain dump, it’s morning and when I am able to sit down, sipping a cup of coffee while contemplating about life and emptying it out a little.

Being an altruist is considered a good trait in general but there's always the what ifs. I am a proponent that morality is subjective. It's all based on certain culture/country/religion and some things may/mayn't work in others therefore, the moral compass are different. It's just a prelude but we're not going to discuss about moral compass. Today's highlight is basically altruism vs being selfish.

Being selfish is something considered a negative trait. It's like growing up some of us, or at least reflecting to my own experience, morality is black and white. There's only good and bad yet as I grew up life is more than that.

There's always more story and reasoning as to why people do certain things and their motivation behind it. It's why the law isn't so black and white. They go deep into the motives, then trial and eventually the sentencing. It's a long process and the same way with judging others. We can't just justify someone is doing X therefore bad or if someone is doing X therefore they are good.

This morning, I suddenly thought about the virtue of selfishness. Yep, you heard me. There's something even called ethical egoism which one of its proponent is Ayn rand. She even wrote an essay about it defending her opinion that there is a virtue in being selfish. Well, based on my life experiences and everything in between, I have to say I agree with her writings that there is virtue in being selfish. It just works in my world view and the world I happen to interact with.

When you grow up without having taught of healthy boundaries, her ideas of selfishness can be the answer to it. Even she argues that there has to be some sort of rationality behind an action despite it's all leading up to one own's interest. For example just being assertive when you're burdened by a task and having the ability to say no.

Just say no when you don't want to do something that burden you. Be it request from family, friends, your boss, colleague, whoever it is. When you do that, you're somehow already practicing selfishness at least, in a sense on how ayn rand defines it.

My coffee runs out and though I have so many examples on it, that is the simplest I can think off. For now, das ist alles!