How many times a day do you think about yourself? For many, including myself, selfish thoughts are completely unconscious and almost unavoidable. However, through these realizations listed below concerning what it would be like if you were unselfish, might trigger a great habit: try to be a little less selfish everyday and the world will ultimately be a better, happier place.
Personally
- You will achieve self-efficacy. Self-efficacy means feeling fulfilled in every aspect of your life. However, if you only actively carry out selfish actions, self-efficacy is something harder to reach. Selfish acts are commonly paired with negative reactions of those around you and with negativity surrounding your life, how can you reach self-efficacy?
- You’ll grow in maturity. Avoiding selfish tendencies can really make a person wise up and realize what is actually important in life. With age comes maturity, but increasing unselfish acts could possibly speed up the process.
- A positive attitude will be your new attitude. Enough said.
Socially
- You’ll grow closer with your friends and family. Putting your own needs aside for a moment and think about the feelings of others may actually increase meaningful relationships in your life. And who’s more important than family and good friends? When it comes down to it, close relationships with people you care about is all that really matters. So next time you’re whining about having to attend a family function, keep in mind how your actions affect others and how two hours of family bonding can really make a difference to others.
- Random acts of kindness will become not so random. Being kind isn’t so hard, and when you practice random acts of kindly daily, it turns into a beautiful habit that touches other people’s lives instead of just your own. Even if it is simply holding a door open for someone or flashing a smile at a stranger, you never know how kindness can affect someone else.
- The world becomes friendlier. Friendliness can really invoke the snowball effect. One friendly act can increase friendliness of others and who wouldn’t want a friendlier world?
- Good karma reaps good karma. Trying to be as good of a person you can be everyday doesn’t only increase your personal happiness, but happy moments seem to be in reach more often. People say karma’s a bitch, but what those people don’t know is that you control karma. Karma’s not that hard to turn around.
Internationally
- There might not be such a huge wage gap. Instead of spending millions of dollars on mcmansions and meaningless material items, give back to those in need through charities, organizations and programs regularly. With less money spent on useless material things, less stress, a giving attitude and understanding can drastically affect the wage gap we see in the US today.
- People in need might not become so needy. There are people half way across the world who are literally dying for necessary survival items as simple as water. Meanwhile, Americans waste 20 gallons of water during a five minute shower. How is that fair? By sharing goods across nations instead of selfishly keeping materials from people can not only save lives, but creating equal opportunity internationally. Sure, you might not be able to have everything your heart desires, however, you’re contributing to the rise of humanity and the care for other’s wellbeing can change the world.
- Lives would be saved. Again, sharing of good can affect hundreds of thousands of lives for the better. Selfish people might comment about people suffering in poverty, “Well, it’s not my fault they’re poor. Why should I help them? What’s in it for me?” This mindset is toxic and is the fault of this modern world.
- Being obscenely rich may not matter so much. When you’re contributing to society in a positive meaningful way, material items don’t matter so much. It’s statistically shown that happiness remains constant from a socioeconomic standpoint. Who knew?
Overall, being a good person, caring and sharing is really what life is all about. Who knew lessons you learned in preschool can be so easily forgotten. Keep in mind the feelings of others and give yourself a little love, but share that love with the world as well.
