selfless

At the beginning of March, I put a visitor counter on my blog. I've had over 700 hits in a little over a month. I never realized I was so popular :) But, in all sincerity, I do appreciate that people are actually reading what I have to say, unless you can attribute all of those page loads to a certain few stalkers :) good thing I don't know who you are.

If anyone cares to know what's been on my mind lately - along with the looming inevitability of end of school chaos - it's the question of what it truly looks like to be a selfless person, why I am all of a sudden deciding it's a concept I need to work on, and is it even practical to think that there is a possibility of growth for not just me, but for anyone in this area. Be warned, this is going to be all over the place.

I think it is not healthy to attempt to be a completely selfless person all the time. For example, my clinical group often fights over procedures and who is going to get to perform a certain skill when the opportunity arises. Would a selfless thing be to take myself out of the fight and allow my classmates to take every opportunity? Once or twice, sure. But to do that constantly, claiming nothing for myself, would be detrimental to my own training at the hospital. Follow? It's great to think of others before myself, but not to the extent of self compromise.

That's a situation that's pretty practical to understand. So, what about when it's not so cut and dry? My mind is really trying to comprehend how to apply this to a couple abstract situations, which is really my motive in writing that. The clinical example was really just a concrete transposition of the abstract. I am fighting to learn how to be understanding and compassionate in situations where I feel like my point of view is not being heard and where situation's impact on me is being disregarded. That's where I'm at right now, and it's hard. But I'm trying. And I am also trying to reconcile this with not becoming a doormat. There's a line, but where is it? Where does selfless stop and self-compromising start?

Obviously, selflessness is a desirable trait in theory, but are the actions that it takes to become this way always going to be perceived correctly? Nobody can truly know another's motives. Selflessness requires looking out for the interest of others before yourself, as long as it's not personally self-destructive - whether in action or attitude.

I think every person needs a healthy balance of selfish and selfless in their lives and there are times when these two may even overlap more than we realize.