An Ugly Truth!

Selfish! - Highly inflammable word getting into oblivion 'coz of the impact that it makes when used or used upon. It’s an unsaid truth that every one of us is selfish. Yes, you heard me alright. The only differentiating factor is the extent of it! We’ve got to be selfish; if not for ourselves then at least for those we care for. 'Wait, wait, wait… something doesn’t add up here. If I am doing something for others how does that make me selfish?' Fair enough of a question, but the fact prevails and it’s not always the way you like it to be seen. Hang on…


Since the day we were born, we've been fogged up with lot many
teachings. One of them: To be unselfish. We asked innocently: 'Paa, what is it to be unselfish?' To which we’ve got: Care for others, treat others as you would like to be treated yourself, don't be self-centered, etcetera. On which you say: 'Sounds good enough. I can do that. That's easy.' Let me ask you this, how often do you think of these stuff before you tag someone selfish? For me, it’s close to never. What we’ve seen hitherto in our life makes us what we are. Facts, beliefs, doctrine, some deeply rooted and acknowledge by our society and some we pick up during our journey to grave. We carry our own scale, calibrated with our own customized ideology, with which we judge every single person around us. May it be 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' scale or be it 'Selfishness' scale.


I asked myself for one thing that can be categorized under the hood of unselfishness. The irrational me came up with “Love”!

   'You gotta give me love!?' I reasoned irrationally.

   The rational me retaliated saying: 'Could you be so kind enough to give it a thought; would you then realize that there is nothing in this world more selfish!'

You love someone to make yourself feel good. You spend time with them to make yourself feel content. You share joy with them to make yourself joyous. You share sorrow with them to make yourself feel cared. The rambling can go on and on just to make the italicized “yourself” stand out prominently.


Someone might throw a gospel from Geeta right into my face which goes like…

"karmanyevaadhikaaraste maa phaleshhu kadaachana"

      Meaning: Your right is for action alone, never for the results.

I can’t resist myself but ask this question, rather bluntly; how many of us actually follow this? I wonder, with this unnerving, unceasing demand to outrival your opponent in the rat race, does this preaching even holds true? Besides, it does not even ask you to eradicate the phal (result part). Deferment is what all it asks for.


If you think about it, there is no such thing called "Selfless deed" in this universe of ours (and I highly doubt that the other way around is true in the parallel universe). Everyone has their own yardstick to categorize what can be called as an act of selfishness and an act of altruism. 'Can we not have a universal scale to define this?' NO, would be an obvious answer. Reason; the school of thoughts that we carry around are diverse. We are different! And may I take a privilege to say we are Selfish!