Confidence gives us the ability to perform our actions. Over confidence come about when we think we are absolutely sure of what we do and the consequences. Our Ego comes into play when the over confidence drives our thought process into absolute surety.

All through our youth and prime of our lives we are driven into the realms of success and achievements with our ambitions and confidence. There’s such a thin line that separates the ego from confidence, that we are often crossing over many a time, till such a time that it get’s difficult to go back. Yes we take pride in our achievements, in who we are and what we represent. How many times have we not boasted about our achievement? Sometimes we don’t express it, but that does not stop our thoughts and desire to do so. Have we not or don’t we seek attention and recognition?

Our measure of success at the work place is defined in comparison to those around us. If you initially don’t believe in the rule of the jungle, you will. It’s hard to survive there.  We go about living our lives seeking the recognition for our abilities and sometimes our uniqueness. We get them and then we seek for more. It’s always a comparison to someone else.

 A time comes in our lives when we seek the peace of mind, the harmony, the ability to move beyond ourselves. This gets invariably brought about in some instances by a satiation of our pursuits and mostly by an overwhelming tiredness in the battle of survival. That what we seek lies in foregoing what we have developed within ourselves for a major portion of our lives. Consciously or unconsciously it is our focus on ourselves and the determination to survive and succeed which has brought us to where we are today. To be able to shed that away for a life away from the self would seem impossible. To focus away some would say is the answer, but is it truly?

Selflessness itself seems to be a utopian quest. In its true sense I would think it relates to a total control over desires and negative emotions while devoting our actions, feelings and thoughts towards a single entity, person or cause. We set out on it with an intention to bring about a change, in the lives of people around us.  But can we do it without a gesture of appreciation or gratefulness in return?  Some do, but all it takes is someone to question the integrity and reasons behind their actions.

How does one get indifferent to success and failure? Can we do away from the need to distinguish ourselves from everyone else?

The spiritually inclined talk about the shift in perception from the self to the soul centred self in order to achieve total selflessness. That means a total disconnect from the world as we know it.

Here lies one of the illogical paradoxes of life that we struggle with.

When feelings of empathy are present many times people will help while stating they are only doing it for the good of that person, and expect nothing in return. However perhaps weeks, months, maybe even years pass and circumstances change for the person who extended themselves to help someone, and they begin thinking about all the things they did for others and why is someone not coming to their aid. Did they truly experience altruism or did they perform the act of kindness with a thought in the back of their mind to hope they would gain something later on in life. Often we will state how people surely will have many jewels in their crown when they arrive in Heaven because of all the good they have done for others. And perhaps even you and this learner have had this very thought after helping someone else. So if this is the case, was true altruism ever really displayed? While our intentions were good, the final result was another.

If you look at the definition of  intentions (the act or fact of intending; determination to do a specified thing or act in a specified manner (“Intention “, n.d.)), one could then state that altruism is strongly related to good intentions. Good intentions will usually bring up the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” (Research provides no specific author of this quote (Apocrypha, n.d.).  One such explanation is “good intentions that pave the road to hell are the result of the ego’s attempt to be good because that is how the ego wants to be viewed ~ ‘ as good’. It is the ego’s intention to be good that paves this road to hell, not genuine goodness which comes from the core when we are living a spiritually awakened life (rapidmom, 2008)”. This would be better described by egoistic alternatives that suggest humans help others because of concern about the costs to the self of not helping and humans experience guilt, so we help others simply to avoid this (Brehm, et al, 1999).

In conclusion it is this learner’s opinion that true altruism is rare mainly because as time goes on do we begin to view the help as being something we should gain some type of reward for even if we hope it’s at least in the next life. Also just as mentioned with good intentions, it is this learner’s feelings that motives do not guarantee behavior (Brehm et al., 1999) and provides more evidence that while we might have good intentions,  we don’t always follow through with the behavior that will demonstrate true altruism. 

References

 Apocrypha (n.d). Retrieved February 8, 2009, from

            http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html

Altruism. (n.d.). In  (Ed.),  Wikipedia. Retrieved February 7, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism#Altruism_in_social_sciences

Brehm, S. S., Kassin, S. M., & Fein, S. (1999). Social Psychology (4th ed.). (pp. 337-380) Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gire, J. T. (2003). PS 302: Social Psychology Home Page.  Chapter Outlines/Notes. Retrieved from: http://academics.vmi.edu/psy/jg/index.htm

Intention . (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.yourdictionary.com/intention

rapidmom. (2008, April 27, 2008). The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Message posted to http://www.oprah.com/community/message/480210#480210