Service v. Self-absorption

How many good works should you do? Whose needs come first? Is it selfish to take care of your own needs first and foremost and then with the leftover energy, take care of … someone else, the world, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free?

Is it selfish to meet your own needs? Who else with breathe for us, consume proper nutrition for us, clothe us? Is it a responsible and non-selfish act to take care of one’s needs without relying on others to do so?

If each of us were responsible, and if each of us took care of our needs, how much help would be required from others? If we are put on this earth to serve others, what the others here for?

Helping others after one’s needs are met doesn’t necessarily mean one is selfish. If you aren’t taking care of your self, your soul, your person, you own needs – you aren’t worth a hill of beans and don’t have enough in reserve to give to anyone else.

Boarding a plane means many things. One of the things it means is that you have to listen to the safety drill. What sort of idiot doesn’t know how to fasten a seat belt? Why do they demonstrate that? Then the breathing masks “fall” from an imaginary ceiling and you are shown how to put it over your mouth and nose. The point? They always say, “If you are traveling with young children, put your own mask on first and then help the child.” Take care of your own basic need first, because without that, you are useless.

The problem lies in defining “needs.” Many of the things we think of as needs are really wants. We need air conditioning. Except we don’t. There was no such thing 100 years ago and people had been living without it for eons. We want air conditioning. Heat, on the other hand is necessary. Fires for heat and cooking have been around for eons.

We need clothing. We do not, however, need closets full of clothes and myriad pairs of shoes. The want should not be confused with the need.

Many of our wants have gotten translated into needs. That doesn’t negate the fact that we have real needs that must be met. It is a service to the world at large if we take care of our basic needs by ourselves? Caring for our own person and the minor children we have brought into the world is a service to all mankind. When I take care of my own needs, I do not expect others to take care of those needs. However, that isn’t what is usually referred to as a life of service.

When do I cross the line and become selfish? Where is the line that marks self-sufficiency and self-reliance rather than self-absorption? If we are to be responsible and accountable for our actions, shouldn’t some of those actions revolve around the care of ourselves at our own expense of time and energy as well as funds? Surely, it can’t be selfish to take care of one’s self.