Cherishing others - selflessness

Throughout life, our general experience may be one of 'Me vs. The World'. An isolated 'self' that is in constant battle, trying to conquer life, a constant mindset of 'self against others'. Like an old song of Tupac Shakur, Me against the world.

From the moment we start to feel that there is a separate 'self' existing - the ego - we spend most of our lives trying to satisfy this ego. This can go on for sometimes sixty, seventy, or eight years even. Imagine that! Spending decades on trying to please our ideas of 'self', to satisfy the desires of the 'self'. We invest nearly all our time and energy into bringing happiness to the ideas we have of ourselves, of this separate 'self', without noticing that it is actually this very same 'self' that has been the root of all our problems!

Self satisfaction

Let's reflect on how we go around day by day, adoring this 'self' and neglecting those around us. We go through all means to experience a little bit of happiness, a little bit of satisfaction, performing selfish actions of mind, speech, and body. All of these selfish actions originate from valuing only this 'me', we get self-absorbed and all our intentions arise from this illusion. This leads to hurting others around us, harming others around us, since most of our actions are selfish.

When we start to contemplate all of this, we realize that we are not only creating a tremendous amount of unhappiness for those around us, but we are actually creating more and more suffering for ourselves. Satisfying our own desires merely leads to an unhappy environment. By comprehending this, we can also be more patient and practice compassion towards others, because we understand that they are driven by an ego-mindset, wishing to satisfy only themselves, resulting in more suffering for themselves.

All of our temporary pleasures come from others. Our employers, our customers, the engineers designing our cars, houses, and computers. Even the doctors that help us to stay healthy, our friends, and families that love us and support us. Our temporary happiness and joy completely comes from the kindness of others. Even our opportunities to practice patience, kindness, forgiveness, all come from others. We need each other so much.

Understanding this, allows us to shift the focus away from this 'self' and we start to consider those around us more. Instead of making our own happiness a priority, we start to make the happiness of others our priority. This is not limited to the human beings we see around us. This includes taking care of animals, not harming or destroying nature, and our communities. When we start to make the happiness of our surroundings a priority, we experience the results of living in a happy environment. We experience a reality of happiness, peace, togetherness, instead of an unhappy reality.

See, when we wish to fulfill only our own wishes, for our own satisfaction, we expect the whole Universe to fall into place to satisfy only one individual. However, when we make wishes to bring happiness and joy to the whole community, a whole society, then we have the collective support of everyone around us. It is thus clear to see, that attempting to satisfy only a separate self may be difficult and even fruitless, while attempting to satisfy all around us, could be way more fruitful and beneficial.

Applying a change of perspective

Saying all of this may sound entertaining, sure, but we need to be practical and realistic too. How exactly do we create such a reality? This does not happen in the blink of an eye. With time and patience, we can cultivate a positive mindset, a selfless mindset. We should also not merely attempt this, because some blog recommends it. No, we need to check up for ourselves, try to figure out where the roots of our unhappiness lie. With thorough investigation, we shall find that the finger always points at one culprit only - This idea of a separate 'self' and actions of self-adoration. If we can shatter this illusion of a separate 'self', we may shatter the source of all our unhappiness!

We can slowly change our behavior, our ways of thinking, in small, simple steps. Attempting to make an immediate 180-degree change may not be wise or practical, and may even bring us more frustration and unhappiness. Patience is of the essence! We slowly cultivate a selfless mindset, a mindset that cherishes others. If we can simply take as little as ten minutes in the morning, thinking about how kind others are to us, how we need them to have this house, these clothes we are wearing, the food that we are consuming, the doctors that delivered us and the parents that gave us this opportunity to have a precious human experience. We consider how we are totally at the grace of others. With this mindset, we start our days and we try to keep it with us all day. It takes time, but as we practice this, it slowly becomes part of us, until we do not even have to think about this anymore.

To conclude, being selfless does not mean that we are only operating on an external level, being kind and loving towards others. We should also allow space for internal change, being peaceful, kind, compassionate, and loving, opening our hearts, and allowing love to flow from here. Cherishing those around us starts with an internal change.

Our selfless actions allow us to enjoy the rewards of real happiness and joy, wherever we go, wherever we are. In the end, we may just realize that there was never a separate 'self' existing and that we were merely cherishing an illusion all along!

Togetherness - all of us having the same source, all of us seeking the same happiness.