A selfless person is someone who cares for other people’s needs and desires more than for her own needs and desires.
When bringing up and socialising children our society encourages selflessness. Selflessness is told to be a virtue. And so because we are told that this is something good, something to strive towards, something to be and do, we may miss a problem here.
The problem
A selfless person is a person without the Self, meaning their true identity. To be selfless is to abandon yourself (your true identity), your needs, your feelings, your thoughts, your preferences, your wants, your interests, your will and instead to focus your time and energy (your whole life) on serving someone else’s needs, preferences, wants, interests and so on.
I’m not talking here about emergency and crisis situations, where a person may choose to sacrifice themselves or something of themselves to help or save somebody. I’m talking here about being selfless day in, day out, all of your life as a way of living. Sacrificing yourself everyday for the sake of someone else’s wellbeing and comfort.
This is not being selfless in a sense of altruistic. It is selfless in a sense I give up myself. I’m without my Self so that I can serve the Self that belongs to someone else.
The person is without the Self because she gave up her Self in order to get external validation, validation from her parents. And this is how it starts.
The origin
It all starts in childhood in dysfunctional families where parents do not see an individual in their child. Instead, they see their child as part of themselves and the family system. Often the child’s reality is denied to her by her parents when she is told not to feel what she feels, not to want what she wants, not to need what she needs simply because it is not convenient for the parent.
It all starts with lack of love where the natural order of things is reversed.
The natural order is for parents to raise their children as healthy, independent and resilient individuals. The child becomes an individual through safety and nourishment as the result of a parent’s love for their child. The child’s physical and psychological safety are the foundation for her to develop a healthy sense of self. This safety should be provided by parents through unconditional love, acceptance, encouragement, nourishment, establishing healthy boundaries and limitations.
This should be provided by default. When it does not happen, the child feels she is on her own. She feels she has to earn her own safety and nourishment by adapting to the hostile conditions that parents themselves create for her through non-acceptance, control and violence.
Parents know their child is helpless without them so they feel they have power and control over her which they abuse. It is evident in the conditional treatment of the child. “I will love you when you behave.” “I will love you when you do what I want and need.”
In this situation there cannot be two individuals: parent and child. The child’s individuality and reality are obliterated by the parent who says they are wrong which means they are inconvenient to the parent. The parent makes the child give up her identity for the parent’s “love” and approval.
The parent asks the child to get rid of her Self, to forget her Self, to abandon and erase her Self. The parent makes the child selfless to make her easy and convenient.
The parent forces the child to become selfless. The parent teaches the child: “If you are selfless, without your identity, without everything that makes you who you are, I will approve of you, accept you and “love” you.” Of course, we need to understand that this is not love. Love is unconditional, to love someone is to love who they are in their totality. I talk about this in my post Earn My Love. How A Narcissist Loves.
This is how selflessness develops. It starts in dysfunctional families where parents make their children convenient and easy for themselves.
On the contrary, an individual is someone who cannot be convenient as they are not easy to control and manipulate. An individual is someone who
- is separate;
- is independent;
- has a strong sense of self and
- therefore boundaries;
- knows herself;
- is connected to her needs, desires, preferences;
- has got free will;
- has got strong will;
- has freedom of choice.
Conclusion
And so no, I don’t think being selfless is good. It robs a person of her humanity, of her right to be herself and live her life for herself based on her unique preferences and desires.
The tragedy for the selfless person is that she’s lost herself and may even never met herself. She has to live with a false identity that is made up of servitude to others. It’s a sacrifice and a waste of a human life and human potential. The person never really becomes truly who she is supposed to be. All she remains is just a human shell focused on pleasing others.