What is selfishness? We tend to use this word very loosely. If some one desires something strongly and acquires it – which he is not prepared to share easily with others – we immediately tend to call him selfish.  Is that actually selfishness? Working for wealth, larger income, greater comforts, additional possessions, sound financial security, stability in life, self preservation, emotional security, better education for children, better family welfare, more pleasures in life etc …. None of them can be classified as selfishness! They are all simple mechanisms of enhancing one’s own survival potential against the possible future challenges in life.

Some people argue that selfishness is the basic drive behind all human actions – that there is a selfish motive behind every simple action of a human – be it in friendship, marriage or even worship of God.  Even falling in love has a selfish motive. A mother’s or parental love has hidden selfish motive to get back something in future from their children. All these arguments betray nothing but ignorance.  Self preservation and self enhancement can never be called selfishness – as that is the basic instinct – the absence of which can be called unnatural. Ambitions and aims of life can never be classified as selfishness – as that is the purpose of life.  Then what is selfishness?

Selfishness = Differential Auto-centric Evaluation!

1. One rule for self and another for others to the advantage of self is – selfishness.
2. Rating of high value for what is given – and low value for what is taken is patent selfishness.
3. Doing things to others that you do not want done to yourself is selfishness.
4. Treating others the way you do not want to be treated is selfishness.
5. Expecting things that you do not do for, or give to others is selfishness.
6. Being and showing partiality to one’s own advantage is selfishness.
7. Deliberately and dishonestly under-rating some body or some one’s work to the advantage of oneself is selfishness.
8. Self praise and condemnation of others without basis is selfishness.
9. Inequitable distribution of possessions to one’s own advantage – ignoring and subordinating the rights of others is selfishness.
10. Taking work out of some one and not compensating them adequately is selfishness.
11. Robbing some one’s work and depriving them of the due credit is selfishness.
12. Advancing one’s career without giving due credit to the subordinates whose contribution is substantial is selfishness.
13. Being unfair in business transactions and squeezing the week is selfishness.
14. Expecting some one to sacrifice for your own advantage is selfishness.
15. Holding on to something that you do not legally or legitimately own is selfishness.
16. Robbing some one of anything – physical or no-physical is selfishness.
17. Not returning what has been borrowed from others is selfishness.
18. Blaming some one else for your failures in any field is selfishness.
19. Wishing your child to be superior to the neighbor’s child is selfishness.
20. Wishing for neighbor’s failure to balance for your own failure is selfishness.

The above mentioned actions are not exhaustive or totally representative list depicting selfishness in people – and the list of 20 actions may be called by many other names – but is basically born out of a “Mental Disease” called “Selfishness”.

Selfishness is a deep rooted sickness / disease born out of lack of self esteem. When a person realizes that he is inherently inadequate and cannot compete with others in performance – he chooses this surreptitious route of foul play. Instead of trying to improve himself / herself which takes effort – they take this easy route of depriving or obstructing others to bring them down to their own levels. Corruption in governments departments is one such glaring manifestation of selfishness of some individuals. They have no dignity, no shame in robbing other’s earnings and property. They are incurable parasites.

Selfish people will be generally found to be very nervous people with low self confidence. In order to camouflage that nervousness – they act angry and arrogant. The low self esteem is because of their own sense of guilt. When they are caught for their misdeeds of impropriety – they immediately try and dramatize their innocence before collapsing and pleading guilty and seeking pardon.

Selfish people are generally quite intelligent and mostly very cunning. Their minds are constantly scheming to find a prey to exploit. They never miss an opportunity when available. They have a criminal mindset and so are very suspicious about others. They can betray you without any qualms. Hence they are very dangerous as friends.

Selfishness = Senselessness + Shamelessness + Insensitivity + Insecurity + Ignorance