Personal Life

What would the world come to if people did not strive to help themselves? Would more be accomplished or nothing at all? When is helping oneself self-interest, and when is it rude and selfish? How far does one have to go to not be selfish? In order to be not selfish, must a person spent all their time giving to others? Is in a way giving to others even show selfishness? If that is true is it possible to end selfishness? These questions do not have straight answers, and probably never will. Yet, to understand the importance of self-interest it is important to understand my opinion of the answers to these questions.

Self-interest is when people strive to help their condition, or themselves without implicating harm on others. It causes people to work harder. I am sure without self-interest many people would not be working at all. Why would they work, if they were not interested in helping themselves? Why would the secretary file papers for hours without getting something out of it? This is very important because without self-interest there would not be a work force. Even high school students strive harder out of self-interest. Those who work harder attend better colleges, and are expected to lead a prospering life. If those students did not feel the need to get into a good college, and lead a life that would be helpful to them, then they would never get anywhere. It is often now that other generations insult the youth of today as being lazy and ignorant. I do not feel that my generation is lazy and ignorant, yet without self-interest pushing them to work I think they would become lazy and ignorant.

Selfishness, although related to self-interest, has important differences. A major difference between selfishness and self-interest is that selfishness while helping oneself may also hurt others. A person becomes rude and selfish when they do not pay attention to anyone but themselves. Selfishness is best shown when a person has responsibilities such as children and