An anonymous reader left the following comment:
one’s love for oneself should always be central to one’s life
This is exactly what I am struggling with, I realise it on a rational level, but I can’t make myself believe in it, because it is completely against my cultural values and against how I was brought up. In my upbringing the main thing was to take care of others, never oneself (and if you did, that was considered completely and totally selfish).
So if at some point you feel like writing about how you came to this conclusion and how you started believing in it, that would be very much appreciated.
This is a very good question. I suggest that you start thinking of this issue in terms of what I call “the airplane strategy.” Do you know how flight attendants always say, “In case of an emergency, put on your own mask before helping anybody else”? The reason why you are told that is that in order to be useful to other people you first need to take care of yourself.
It’s great to want to take care of others but will you really be able to do much for the people you love if you are overworked, exhausted, and miserable? Wouldn’t the people in your life benefit a lot more from having you happy, content, full of energy and, well-rested?
Serafim Sarovsky, one of the greatest Christian thinkers that ever lived, said, “Save yourself and thousands will be saved around you.”
Clarissa's Blog 
Ayn Rand addresses this issue very well in Atlas Shrugged. Those who cannot or will not take care of themselves cannot possibly be of help to others. If everyone took care of themselves there would be much less necessity for others to come to their rescue.
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This is a very important observation. Many people dedicate themselves to this show of taking care of everybody else’s issues simply because they don’t want to solve their own. This fake altruism is nothing but emotional and personal sloppiness.
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I defintely agree with the airplane trategy. But wit the caveat: after one places the mask oneself, a decent human being is duty bound to make sure to help others and not glance around feeling smugly superior because his/her mask is safely on while old/sick/young people are struggling to put theirs on. 😉
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Well, obviously we are not discussing real sociopaths here. This is for normal people who’ll never let a person die or suffer horribly by their side.
Often, however, the best help one can offer to a person is to stop helping them.
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I guess I was thinking of it more metaphorically. As in, I believe that those who have prospered and done well should still be willing to contribute economically (via taxes) to public schooling and to building a social safety net. (So they have their mask, now they should help others put on their mask.) When the very rich try to search for tax loopholes or fight even modest tax increases and refuse to help support necessary social programs, I see it as reprehensible and perhaps even sociopathic. I am also grumpy right now because an important bus line that I take to get to work just got cut. And the prevailing ethos seems to be “I drive. So why should I pay taxes to support a bus system that I don’t take?” No concern or sense that public transportation is a social good. Grrrr.
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Ugh. I was typing quickly. Sorry for the missing letters/words up above. 🙂
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That question is tough. I choose to take care of myself and if there is something left, I take care of others. However, I am quite aware this can have extreme consequences. For instance, when I was receiving my scholarship money, I sent some of it to a student movement group based in Zimbabwe. Nowadays, I can’t afford to financially support Zimbabwean issues. This group was always getting itself into dire straits. Part of this was audacity — they would protest the situation of Zimbabweans in South Africa, where the xenophobia was so bad many were set alight and died by burning. They were hit with rubber bullets, which could not have done anything for their psychological state. At other times, their actions were foolhardy — signing up with Scientology to develop a youth support movement in Zim. (Hey, you go where the money happens to be.)
Anyway, I couldn’t be responsible for their decisions and one of the guys was distinctly lumpen proletariat, taking money meant for youth and using it for his own subsistence.
One of the two directors, aged 37, died this month of a massive stroke.
He was diabetic and of course his life had been full of stress.
My life has also been extremely stressful at times — although not to this degree. I haven’t put myself on the line to the degree that this guy did.
Is one partly responsible for the death of another due to stress?
I don’t think so — otherwise I would be responsible for the whole of Zimbabwe.
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Playing the role of somebody’s perennial savior is often a very dishonest position to take. I noticed at one stage that I was busily arranging everybody’s personal lives not because I cared about those people but because I didn’t want to face the disaster that my own personal life was. And the feelings of baseless superiority for those “poor victims” I was “helping” were very pleasing.
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I never had that feeling. I’ve never been middle class enough for that. Rather, I was writing my thesis on a Zimbabwean guy who took a lot of risks and I wanted to experience those risks vicariously. So, actually I was doing it for myself.
Middle class liberalism — I’ve never related to it.
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It’s a shame that middle class liberalism seems to dominate the notion of what it means to do good. I’ve even had some Zimbos themselves assuming that my motivations must be of the same source. Actually, I don’t want to promote myself and I’m not emotionally manipulated by guilt. I’m not religious.
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It’s a balancing act. Sometimes in life you may find yourself responsible for others who are not capable of understanding how to care for themselves (infants, toddlers, frail elderly or those with dementia, people on hospice, severely ill people). In a time limited situation, such as emergencies or someone in the dying process, you may find you have to put others first, especially if you are trying to do this alone and can’t persuade others to assist. This is particularly a predicament for elderly spouses when one is healthy and the other isn’t.
Over the long haul, though, adults in general need to put their own basic needs first or those won’t be met. If you don’t do it, no one will.
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“Sometimes in life you may find yourself responsible for others who are not capable of understanding how to care for themselves (infants, toddlers, frail elderly or those with dementia, people on hospice, severely ill people).”
– Even with infants, though, new mothers are always told to take care of themselves, to do all they can to rest, get sleep, indulge themselves, spend time away from the baby. Because a woman with postpartum depression who is not taking care of herself will not be that good for the infant either.
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“In my upbringing the main thing was to take care of others, never oneself (and if you did, that was considered completely and totally selfish).”
I was brought up this way too and have experienced other people trying to vilify me for merely taking care of myself. I haven’t found too many people who were emotionally supportive towards my need to take care of myself and respecting that. Most spend a lot of time comparing themselves to me, which I feel is about them trying to rationalize their manipulations. I’ve even had people interpret clinical depression (I’ve suffered very severe bouts of clinical depression) as due to being focused on oneself and the Christian focus on service to others has been offered as a solution for depression.
I’m not interested in being someone’s savior and I’m not certain that I enjoy being a helper either. I start to feel very resentful towards people trying to involve me in the drama’s. I’ve had to cut some people out of my life given their manipulative tendencies. I keep telling myself, I didn’t break them and it isn’t my job to fix them. That isn’t being selfish. It’s hard won wisdom.
Good topic Clarissa.
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There was absolutely no liberalism around when I was growing up. Christian liberalism was considered extremely suspect, since the World Council of Churches was identified by our politicians as a communist organisation. The idea of sacrificing for others in a Christian ideological sense wasn’t particularly heard of. Certainly, one did not compare oneself to others or try to fix one’s problems in that way. Any problems were fixed by the military or by sanctions busters. Problems that couldn’t be fixed were dealt with by work-arounds. My culture was an extremely hedonistic one. Not caring what others thought about us was our mark of pride. We had a rather casual attitude towards many kinds of violence.
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“There was absolutely no liberalism around when I was growing up. Christian liberalism was considered extremely suspect, since the World Council of Churches was identified by our politicians as a communist organisation. The idea of sacrificing for others in a Christian ideological sense wasn’t particularly heard of. Certainly, one did not compare oneself to others or try to fix one’s problems in that way. Any problems were fixed by the military or by sanctions busters. Problems that couldn’t be fixed were dealt with by work-arounds. My culture was an extremely hedonistic one. Not caring what others thought about us was our mark of pride. We had a rather casual attitude towards many kinds of violence.”
Your experiences are so very outside of my own–the Christian liberalism. Sacrificing for others is not framed in a direct, honest way. People are indoctrinated into that way of thinking for better or for worse. I have issues with it. I’m also cynical–a result of my own personal experience. I’m highly suspicious of other people’s motives, especially people who try to frame their intrusive behaviors as being or knowing what is good for me. I completely resent that, and in fact, feel outright hostility towards other’s trying to impose on me.
In my experience the distinction between the “have’s” and the “have nots” creates a type of comparison culture instead of a focus on a common thread of humanity, which to my way of thinking would have a more spiritual component to it. I also don’t feel that the comparison making is about someone trying to fix one’s problems. I’ve never construed this type of behavior that way simply because the outcome is usually that it tends to makes one’s life worse, not better. I would not want any military trying to fix any of my problems–EVER! I doubt I’d have confidence in their abilities, if one had a choice. I often feel that American culture is hedonistic as well, but then I haven’t lived as a foreigner in other cultures to make that comparison either.
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“. I’ve even had people interpret clinical depression (I’ve suffered very severe bouts of clinical depression) as due to being focused on oneself and the Christian focus on service to others has been offered as a solution for depression.”
– What??? You just slaughtered me with this. Is there anybody dumb enough to interpret the causes of depression this way? Some people are all kinds of stupid. And to say such things to a clinically depressed person? That is just cruel.
” I start to feel very resentful towards people trying to involve me in the drama’s. I’ve had to cut some people out of my life given their manipulative tendencies. I keep telling myself, I didn’t break them and it isn’t my job to fix them. That isn’t being selfish. It’s hard won wisdom.”
– Exactly. I agree completely.
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“- What??? You just slaughtered me with this. Is there anybody dumb enough to interpret the causes of depression this way? Some people are all kinds of stupid. And to say such things to a clinically depressed person? That is just cruel.”
Sadly, yes it is true. I was always dismissed quite alot as being “too sensitive,” as well. There are people who still treat people who suffer with terrible depression as if this stems from being a weak person.
The first episode I ever had was in high school and I was never treated for it and eventually cycled out of it. I think my parents were embarassed by it and angered. I tried to commit suicide and that made them even angrier. Well, eventually when I found out that I could be treated I sought help. It amazes me that anyone could ever think that someone would want to wake up feeling clinically depressed. People are ignorant, but I fail to see how that state of being could be blissful.
“Some people are all kinds of stupid.”
Yes, so very true.
“And to say such things to a clinically depressed person? That is just cruel.”
These are the same types of people who dismiss psychotherapy as mere “naval grazing”. I’ve met a lot of these types…unfortunately.
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“The first episode I ever had was in high school and I was never treated for it and eventually cycled out of it. I think my parents were embarassed by it and angered. I tried to commit suicide and that made them even angrier. ”
– This is so horrible. I’m very sorry you had to go through this.
“These are the same types of people who dismiss psychotherapy as mere “naval grazing”. I’ve met a lot of these types…unfortunately.”
– I know! It’s like they are proud of their ignorance.
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http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/THUS_SPOKE_ZARATHUSTRA_.aspx?S=26
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As someone who works in health care and see’s this on a daily basis……….you hit the nail on the head. Great post.
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Wow, that kind of made some sense.
But 2 things.
a) I don’t think you should wait to be perfect before helping others, cause no one is perfect
b) sometimes you will screw up trying to help others when you should not and sometimes you should try to help others but won’t (because you can’t or you don’t want to).
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In my view, egoism is instrumental to altruism, in that one cannot help others without knowing how to care for oneself. After all, if I know how to make myself happy, then surely I know how to make others happy. However, aside from cultivating my ability to take care of others; recognizing my individuality; and ensuring that I’m content with life, I see no other value in egoism.
Ergo, even though I strive to take care of myself in every way imaginable, I’m still an altruist at heart (at least in principle).
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I think the problem is with the assumption that altruism or egoism forms an either-or proposition. It ought to be both. From a Nietzschean perspective, it is both, and in terms of the way humans are constructed, it is both. We are fundamentally empathetic creatures, as mirror cell theory should lead us to understand. If there are happy faces around me, I am bound to be happy. If the world is a place of drudgery and servitude, even if I am relatively free, I am still unhappy.
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