All people care about is themselves

is it true? is that all we care about?

these days its all me me me me me and i want this and i want that

but do people think about anybody else or is it all about them?

i remember being a real grouch and i was pretty bad, well i was ill and i remember when i had this disease and i would be constantly internalizing and asking myself why and i didnt even care about anyone except numero uno and how i was going to cope with this and that and the paranoia,

it wasnt my fault but it was a symptom of this disease i guess and iā€™ll call this symptom ā€˜self internalizationā€™ and i think it is actually something that might not be that well known as a symptom.

i like to think that i have wised up now and that it was the disease that made me that way because i wasnt like that deep down.

then i got on a good med and started thinking about others apart from myself, i think my doc was the first person to notice as i said to her ā€˜why dont you ever smileā€™ and the next time i seen her she tried to smile and i think she is a better happier person now since i said that, i also helped my gran before she died and visited her in the hospital and other things as well.

basically without that symptom of self internalization i am a much nicer, friendlier person, i help people as much as i can and i am not just thinking about myself all the time.

i am not trying to hurt anyone with this thread tho or say that they are a bad person i just wanted to point out through my own experience how this symptom affected me and how it can affect others too.

it is a very subjective disease a lot of the time and i think the more we try to think of others the more we are beating this disease. :slight_smile:

its not just about us tho, i think this problem is world wide and if it wasnt like that the worl would be a much friendlier place.

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It depends on how helpless, needy children are treated. If their neediness only angers people, they never outgrow having to be concerned about themselves.
Ask yourself, ā€œHow do react when a kid asks for a drink of water or a baby cries. Do I get mad and make the kid feel terrible about having a need? or do I give him his need with kindness and respect.ā€

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That is exactly how I was after my onset. When I was seeing the world through decay and rust colored glasses I was not a nice person, I didnā€™t care about anyone. I only cared about me. It was all about me. I was the sick one. NOT them. ME! Why wonā€™t people understand Iā€™m ill and itā€™s hard for me.

But under all that illness and decay was a different person. He was in there. That happy little guy was in there somewhere. He came out when I had a chance to swim. (or when I was high on XTC :frowning:)
So I could feel him in there trying to get out.

I got stabilized and anti-depressed and most of allā€¦ over my anger phase.

I met nicer people who had it worse. I met positive people who gave me help. I got my head out of my butt, I quit being so mean and low and beholdā€¦ when I quit being so angry and bitterā€¦ friends came back into my life.

Family helped me more. I had the right attitude for the out patient programā€¦ which got me on the path to my job.

I was in the same boat as you. It seem like with a better attitude and trying to be a nicer personā€¦ Iā€™m in the same boat as you are still.

Congratulations on coming out of that dark space and reaching out to people around you. Itā€™s a huge step. :thumbsup:

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Is it true? Yes and no. I believe it is true for everyone at some point in life that they only care about themselves. It is also true that some people care about only themselves and then change, and also true that some people only care about themselves ever and some people care for others and then eventually themselves.

If you are talking on a level of what people are naturally programmed to do, then I believe the current theory is we are programmed to reproduce and protect the offspring to ensure the survival and spread of our genes, so in a wayā€¦no people do not only care about themselves. There are however people who have children and donā€™t care about them at all or never wanted them, or care for friends or other family etc.

To ask a question hoping for an answer true for all people even on some level, the answer will always be subjective and gray.

i used to be consumed - I internalized everything. I was hyper focused on my illness, my symptoms. It not that I did not care about other people, because i did. Now that Im doing better, I am more outside of my self - more social

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Interesting tidbit: self-interest makes the world go round. (Note: I donā€™t mean self absorption)
Ted wants a new car. He goes to work to make money. He is an accountant. His services help businesses run and be able to hire more people because the boss doesnā€™t have to take on all the responsibility of everything. He gives a piece of it to Ted and pays Ted to take care of it for him.
Ted gets his money and buys the car. The car was manufactured by a factory of people and machines. He is paying a slice of those peopleā€™s paychecks and the machine makerā€™s paychecks because the machine will wear out and the factory will buy a new one sending on some of Tedā€™ money to those people.
The web is endless.
Every purchase we make echos in eternity. We want a fancy mocha? We buy hairbands for our daughter? It all makes the world go round.

Um scientifically speaking, yes people only care about sensory experiences, the brain is literally a 10lb pilot of a huge slab of meat and organs. Since everything is subjective to each individualā€™s brain, we do only care about ourselvesā€¦caring for others activates regions in our own brains to make us feel goodā€¦so even altruism is actually selfish.

cynical, yes, but i learned this in class from a Ph.D.

it might make us feel good when we give or do something for others but that is just a bonus and it is not the sole reason we do it,

i would never do something like that for my own benefit its all about the other person and how they feel.

example- when you do something for someone do you say to yourself ā€˜this is going to make me feel goodā€™
or ā€˜this is going to make them feel goodā€™?

also the other thing you say about the brain being meat and organs is not a very positive view of the human body, we have a soul and a spirit and you cant take that away.(unless you are a butcher) lol

I can only speak for myself here.
If I donā€™t put myself first, who will? Answer: no oneā€¦and I wouldnā€™t expect anyone to either.
But that donā€™t mean I cant share when I am able, and I do.

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If you were to look at the world as if it were filled with different ā€œenergiesā€ instead of people, you would see the different energies merge together to create a needed state. Itā€™s the same with people. We do what we want and what we need. No matter what the thought or action, the very base of it is fulfillment.
It may seem like a de-humanizing thought, but itā€™s not. In fact, I would argue the opposite. At the end, whether itā€™s taking care of someone else or ourselves, because thatā€™s what we want or need, eventually it leads toward one goal, of becoming 100% pure, good, light, energy, etcā€¦
Even evil purposes that destroy have an ultimate outcome of pureness.
Thatā€™s my worldview anyway. :stuck_out_tongue:

Consider a food fight. Two hungry people and only one serving of food. Who gets it? Or do you split it so you are both only half fed. I am very selfish when it comes to hunger.

But making them feel good makes you feel good.

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There is a theory in ethics called Psychological Egoism that says that everything we do, we do for our own self-interest, even things that seem altruistic. Abraham Lincoln was riding on a coach when he saw some piglets drowning, and the mother pig very upset. He asked the driver to stop, and he got out and saved the piglets. He had been talking to his friend that everybody is selfish. His friend said to him that what he did was not selfish. But Abraham Lincoln replied that that was the very height of selfishness, for he wouldnā€™t have had peace of mind otherwise. You can argue that a truly selfish person wouldnā€™t have lost peace of mind over some drowning piglets, so you can say that not everyone is selfish all of the time. I personally believe that doing good counts for something. I donā€™t think that itā€™s all selfishness.

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Iā€™ve been pondering this and people have to care about them selves.

If people canā€™t care for or about themselves, then they have no way to care for or about others.

Taking care of yourself helps you take care of others.

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You stole the words right off my tongue, thanks for making that distinction.

doesnt make it selfish.

being selfish is only looking after yourself (no-one else)

you have to make that distinction

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