For as long as I can remember, helping others has been something that was engraved in my personality. Over the years, I have spent a lot of time helping family, friends, and strangers. Some of the things I have done include buying food for the homeless (I take them inside or ask them what they would like from the restaurant instead of giving them money), or helping strangers carry heavy loads across locations. Whenever I see someone in need, I do my best to help them in any way I can. As a result, I have been called ‘selfless’ countless times.
However, I remembered something from the television show, Friends, in which Joey Tribbiani explains to Phoebe Buffay that there is no such thing as a ‘selfless good deed’ because every good deed will bring the individual happiness. After thinking about this idea, I realized how much validity that simple statement had and that made me wonder, “Am I actually a selfish person who helps others for my own happiness when I had always thought I did it for them?” Eventually, I came to my own conclusion about the idea, which is that a decision is either selfish, or selfless, depending on the intention behind the action. It is a given fact that every good deed brings the individual happiness because it elicits responses from the four ‘feel good’, or ‘happy hormones’. These four hormones include endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. Therefore, if we can all accept that everything we do elicits some benefit or happiness for the individual, we have to look at what’s left, which is the reason he/she did the action in the first place.
I strongly believe in the idea that “everything is connected” in this world, which in this situation means there is always a motivation behind an action. There is a connection between the action, the intention, and the reaction, or feeling that we receive after conducting an action. For instance, if a person gave money to charity for the sole purpose of helping the organization or the children, then I believe that deed would be selfless. However, while they may have wanted to help the organization, if the underlying (or internal) reason for donating the money is for recognition, fame, or exposure of some sort, then the action is selfish.
In the end, I like to believe that if a decision was made in order to help yourself, that makes the action selfish, but if it was meant to help someone else, the community, the society, etc., then it is a selfless action. In other words, WHY we do something defines the type of person we are and our goals. This idea, helping the community and the society, is a key component to making the world a better, more positive place. If everyone can learn to help for the sake of helping others and not bettering ourselves, we can help the world move away from the self-focused “me” path and onto the outwardly humanitarian “we” path.