On Living Selfishly: new link, new thoughts

A couple years ago, I posted the link to my TED-X Youth talk “On Living Selfishly” via a Vimeo site with all six talks that day in 2022 at Choate Rosemary Hall School.  I have learned that my talk is on YouTube at the TED Talks channel:

https://youtu.be/6sUNwHXvWSU?si=BUdZ5XM1kZydc7GE 

I seem to be alone - to some, even goofy - in regarding myself as completely selfish. But it seem so obvious to me that one’s values and actions, and one’s responsibility for one’s choices, are what matter! It seems obvious, too, that self-righteousness - particularly, “I’m not selfish” - is toxic to individual happiness, community spirit, and international understanding! So I thank all who see fit to share the link to my TED-X talk.

This past week I gave an updated version of On Living Selfishly at a local service club.  I added this toward the end, after the Dr. Albert Schweitzer's great quotation: 

This is my perspective on a human condition.  However, for those who are, like me, spiritually inclined, there is a clearly holy dimension: the Creator of each of us and all of us - call it God, or Allah, or Brahman, or just Life with a capital L - gives each human being autonomy. 

Entrusted with that autonomy, though we may hope for divine inspiration, are our values, our priorities, and our actions not matters of our choice?

 

Let me share with you a story.  I think it is a Sufi story I first heard from my late mother.

 

"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten.  And, seeing them, the seeker cried, 'Great God, how is it that a loving Creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?'

 

"To which God replied, 'I did do something. I made you.'"

 

How to discern one's values

There is a perfect, infallible way to discern your values and to examine them: whatever you are doing from moment to moment is the expression, the manifestation, of your conscious and unconscious values.

If that seems wrong to you, think about what part of that logic is wrong, and why. 

#confessionofaselfishman

A voice from within you?

This the Holy Spirit speaking. Call me whatever you wish: your connection to the divine; your conscience; your personal truth; your better judgment. I am no more, but no less, than the Holy Spirit within you. I am here. I am always here. And I am here for you. I care about your health and well-being. I love you and I always will. I am eager to guide you to peace of mind, healthful choices, loving and joyful relationships, and wholesome success.

If it seems otherwise, it may be that you are not listening.

It may be that other things are more important to you than paying attention to the goodness, even the holiness, within you.

It may be that it is more important to you to be right, to defend your ego, than to accept others, and yourself, without judgment.

It may simply be that it has been so long since you talked with me that you have forgotten that I am right here within you.

Now you know. Again.

- God, attrib.