The Virtues of Selfish Service

Your Feelings of Selfishness Can Actually Help People in Need!


John J. Teng P.E.

One day I was sitting in a church meeting where the church official was trying to motivate the attendees to improve their willingness to render acts of service to their fellow church members and also to members of our communities.  He tried to appeal to us from the standpoint that God wanted us to serve others.  I raised my hand at some point and said, “we all know that God wants us to serve others, but that idea obviously hasn’t been motivating enough to get people up and moving.”  I then said, “what if we start reminding people that there’s something in it for them if they’ll go out and help someone else?  My thinking was if they won’t do it to help someone else, maybe they’ll do it if they realize they’re actually doing themselves a favor!  My idea didn’t see to go across so well to the speaker, but I was convinced I was on to something!

Then one day I shared my idea with my friend Veronica and she confirmed exactly what I had known to be true for so many years.  In her own words, Veronica shared the following sage advice with me as follows:

“Even if you can’t do it from your heart, even if you can’t do it because it’s the right thing to do, I feel like you should do it because you’re just thinking about you at the end of the day, because it’s okay to think of it that way, if that’s the only way you can think of it.   Sometimes we have to think selfishly. Sometimes you might not want to do it, because of who the person is, or how they’ve done you, but sometimes you have do it just because you want that same thing in return…What Karma you put out is what you receive, and you should do whatever you can, whether it is selfish or from the heart, to make sure you put it out there.” [1]

Click the video link below to watch Veronica share  her thoughts on  this powerful concept

Understand as well that the person to whom you render your service to may not reciprocate, acknowledge or even simply thank you for your efforts…and you have to be okay with that.  It may not be the same person you directly helped in the first place that actually shows up in your own time of need, but know that you have pushed good out into the world and good will inevitably be repaid for good.  Yes, it’s very possible that your “repayment” might not necessarily come in the form, or from the person, or in the time frame that you might expect, but I strongly believe that everything that goes around, must eventually come back around again.  It might be somebody looking in on you who you didn’t even know was looking in on you that comes in and helps.  It might be a nephew or a niece that quietly observed how you performed a particularly good deed and feels moved at the right time to help reciprocate that good deed.

Obviously the higher road is to give from the heart, but if your heart is currently not in that place for one reason or another, consider the virtue of being selfish as a vehicle to render service and goodwill towards others, as a way to not only bring good Karma upon your own life, but also to truly make a difference for good in the lives of the people to whom you are serving.  Because in the end everybody wins!


 John J. Teng Founder/ CEO Midlife Magazine

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