Me, Myself, & I

Heroism is good, cowardice is bad.  Philanthropy is good, thievery is bad.  Honesty is good, lying is bad.  Virtue is good, infidelity is bad.  Charity is good, greed is bad.  Self-sacrifice is good, murder is bad.  No one educates us on these facts, they come tattooed to the very fabric of our DNA as we slide from the womb.

What's the difference between a hero and coward, philanthropist and thief, honest man and liar?   One puts his own self-interests and desires first, the other puts his interests and desires last.  One is selfish, the other selfless.  Can you guess which is which?

To be fair, we can hardly blame the cowardly, thieving, liar for his lowly behavior.  After all, our base nature encourages self preservation.  We naturally push aside the needs of others in order to satisfy our own desires in the pursuit of self-preservation.   Natural selection, survival of the fittest, thinning the herd, weeding out the weak and stupid... nature, baby!  "No one's gonna look out for me, so I gotta get mine!  Look out for #1!" has become the battle-cry of the civilized western mind.

Most people are able to disguise these behaviors and coalesce into the status-quo, as their behaviors blend with the acceptable expectations of society as a whole.  Unfortunately for us addicts, our selfish desires fall well beyond the lines of decent standards set forth by the global community.  Were that our addictions were for money, power, or fame we'd be fine.  Instead, we crave an escape via chemical means, dropping us into the lower echelons of common culture.  Granted, we apply the self-same defense mechanisms to survive, but it matters little.  We're just the lowly "drunks & junkies" they step over on their way into the liquor store.

Now, if you were to ask us our opinion of ourselves, that's quite a different story!  We're legends in our own minds, prophets unappreciated in our own villages, rebels without applause.  We're geniuses!  We've got everything figured out.  Sure, we may be a bit selfish at times, but we know what's best for us.  Our survival instincts have kept us alive so far, so we must be doing something right.  Step aside and don't tell us how to live our lives!

Here's the rub:  It's our best practices, best thought processes and decision making skills that landed us where we are today - wrecked and broken.  Right or wrong, our selfish behaviors have offended those around us and separated us from society.  Our stubborn pride has made us blind to the fact that we have been pushed out of the herd.  And guess what... Those outside the herd are the first to be picked off by predators.  Our survival instincts, to which we give so much credit, have put us directly in the path of predation. While treading hard toward self-preservation, we have inadvertently set ourselves up for extinction.

Do we want to survive?  Our survival instincts, though proven successful in the past, have become a detriment.  We must humble ourselves and admit that our thought processes require change.  Most important, we must admit that we can't do it alone, we need others.

Get in the middle of the herd or get picked off at the edges.