The quality of selfishness is when people seek to benefit themselves and have no regard for others. People do whatever it takes to win, gain and profit, even at other people's expense.
The consequences of selfishness are obvious in our society. Our families are falling apart, our educational systems are failing, business practices are fraudulent, our governments are corrupt, the environment is polluted and the quality of society has deteriorated.
Our selfish behaviour has led to a lack of trust between us, and a lack of trust has led to our need to protect ourselves from each other:
- military forces protect our countries
- police forces protect our citizens
- keys to our houses, cars and other belongings protect our possessions
- passwords protect our accounts
- bars on windows, gated communities, padlocks, locks, etc.
Living this way creates tension, fear and unhappiness. It takes our time, energy, effort and money. It's exhausting and it's stressful.
We have to change our ways. We have to leave the quality of selfishness and enter the quality of concern for others. We need to seek to benefit others instead of ourselves.
If you're concerned about your neighbour's well-being, and you're doing everything you can to benefit them, you're not going to steal from them, exploit them or harm them in any way.
Your neighbour will automatically trust you because they'll see that you're seeking to benefit them. Also, your neighbour will seek to benefit you and you'll automatically trust them.
In this way, the relationship between us will change and we'll trust each other completely.
If we trust each other, we won't need to protect ourselves from each other. As such, society will change:
- military forces will disappear
- police forces will disappear
- we won't need keys for our doors, cars or other belongings
- we won't need passwords for our accounts
- no bars on our windows, no gated communities, no padlocks, no locks etc.
The whole world is one family and we need to start behaving like one family. We need to change our ways, from selfishness to concern for others.
We need to seek to benefit others instead of ourselves, and as such, build trust between us. If we trust each other, we'll live in harmony with each another and we'll be happy.
Copyright © 2013, Carter Kagume. All Rights Reserved.
