SELFISHNESS
Selfishness is caring only about
yourself rather than about other people.
A selfish person is egotistic. He is
self-centered, self-regarding and self-absorbed.
On the contrary, a selfless person is
altruistic, self-denying, self-sacrificing, liberal, generous, and magnanimous.
The Archbishop of Dublin Richard Whately (1787-1863) said:
A man is called selfish, not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his
neighbour’s.
According to the American poet and essayist
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) the selfish man suffers more from his selfishness
than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit.
The Scottish novelist and poet Sir
Walter Scott (1771-1832) believed that sordid selfishness doth contract and
narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within
ourselves, and to turn our stings to all the world besides.
The English poet and critic Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) said: John Milton
(English poet 1608-74) has carefully marked in his Satan, the intense
selfishness which would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Selfish persons are universally
disliked. They remain isolated and suffer from the pain of being lonely.
There is a famous story of The Selfish Giant written by the Irish
author and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
in which a giant selfishly builds
a wall around his beautiful garden, preventing children from playing there,
which results in the garden falling into perpetual winter. He even puts up a
notice board saying: Tresspassers Will Be Prosecuted.” As a result, even the spring season does not
enter the garden which looks like a wasteland without beautiful blossoms.
According to the story, the Spring
season revisits when some children enter the garden through a whole and start
playing. This beautiful renewal of the garden’s environment makes the Selfish Giant realize his folly of selfishness. He pulls
down the wall which had stopped the entry of the children and others, and
starts playing with the children.
In the Giant’s old age, the garden is
visited by a boy with nail wounds on his body. This boy is Jesus Christ himself.
He describes the wounds as the wounds of love.
The story ends with the giant as dead,
showing a peaceful smiling face, covered with white flowers.
To conclude, here is a famous quote:
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or
in the darkness of destructive selfishness.---American minister and civil
rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968).
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G. R. Kanwal
4th October 2025
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