The Benefit of Selflessness
I walked into the house at around 11:30 pm to the sanity shattering incessant chirp of a smoke detector with a dead battery. When I dragged myself upstairs my sister was working on a one-off project for one of her fashion customers. So I asked her if she knew where the chirp of the Tell Tale Smoke Detector was coming from. “It’s in my room. So I’m going to sleep downstairs. I have to get a ladder out to change the battery and I don’t feel like doing it tonight, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
That piercing chirp could be heard even when separated by two floors and two closed doors. CHIRP, every five seconds on the second. So I waited till my inconsiderate sibling staggered downstairs and locked herself in the quietest part of the house before breaking out the ladder, new battery and fixing that late night sleep inhibitor. At no point did my sister consider how her selfish attitude would impact any of the three other residents of the house.
Believe me, Queen All About Me’s decision to forgo changing that battery was not a heart stopping revelation. On two other occasions less than a month prior she said she was heading out and didn’t let anyone know where she was for five days, until she walked back in the front door. She never bothered to arrange for a dog sitter, or ask anyone to take care of her dog while she was gone. It was just a foregone conclusion that someone would cover for her irresponsibility and inconsideration, because obviously no one else in the house has a life.
Queen All About Me’s attitude doesn’t surprise me anymore, but the All About Me attitude that we have as a society I find very unnerving. Recently I saw a social media post of a professional acquaintance with whom I have gone to great length to support and keep apprised of sales and marketing opportunities. So I was more than a little disappointed to see the post on her social media platform stating she was participating at a local book festival that I hadn’t heard of, and she never reached out to see if I knew about it before the May 1st deadline.
Collectively, as a society, we’ve really bought into this idea of scarcity. There isn’t enough time in the day so I have to stay focused on me, exclusively. I’m not going to share this information with Jim because I might lose out on revenue if he makes a few sales. In the long run this selfish and self-absorbed attitude that derives from a scarcity mindset only hurts its master. Will I keep my colleague informed about new opportunities I see? Sure, but there’s a good chance I’ll take a lackadaisical attitude in delivering news compared to the proactive attitude I’d been employing.
Many hands make light work; that’s one of those snippets of wisdom that dates back to the great minds of antiquity, which my fellow scribe appears to discount to irrelevance. By working together we can accomplish amazing feats that could never be accomplished by individuals, but that requires shedding scarcity’s attitude of selfishness. It goes without saying that you can be extremely successful with a selfish attitude, but legendary success can only be attained through selflessness, by putting others before yourself. A selfless attitude won’t produce significant dividends in the short run, but I hope you choose the selfless attitude because in the long run your results could be epic.
© Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
