Selfishness

  I have been thinking a lot about different manners of selfishness lately.  There are people that are very obviously selfish.  They are rude and obnoxious and everything has to be about them all the time.  But is there more subtle ways of being selfish that I need to root out of my own life?

Being subtly selfish happens a lot.  I think it is a fine line at times.  Here are some examples I have thought of:

• Being willing to help someone out, but choosing to do what you want the way you want rather than listening to what they want help with and how they want it done
• Purchasing a gift for someone for a special occasion or even just because, but getting something you think is awesome rather than paying attention to the other person enough to know what he or she will enjoy the most
• Really, anything where you want to do something special for another person, but you are only thinking about what you would like other people to do for you rather than knowing the other person well enough to know what he or she would like

Basically, selfishness and pride go hand in hand.  How much do we think about ourselves, our needs, our wants, our life and then project that onto other people?  Other people have different personalities than we do, different needs, different wants, a different life.  Are we humble enough to pay attention to others, really pay attention?  Here in the United States, people are so busy, watch the clock so carefully, and fill their lives with so much meaningless noise that we don’t pay attention to each other, even in our own households.  We need to slow down, really communicate, and stop fooling ourselves that everyone is just like us.