Be Selfish First

"Maintain oneself: Te becomes real.

Maintain the family: Te becomes abundant.

Maintain the community: Te becomes extensive.

Maintain the country: Te becomes prolific.

Maintain the world: Te becomes omnipresent."

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"Te" stands for the Chinese character 德. There is no accurate translation, but the closest would be virtue, integrity or character.

Excerpt taken from chapter 54 of the Tao Te Ching.

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We have to be selfish first before we can be selfless.

This clashes with the society we were born into in many ways. A society that is packed with do-gooders — people who talk about inequality, environmental issues, community and world peace — while seemingly drowning in its own bitterness and anger. We have never lived in a landscape with more human rights activists, philanthropists, NGOs and institutions committed to the many noble issues — be it apparently or actually. At the same time, individualism is at its peak. We have created two parallel universes where we proclaim things with a raised index finger, but act the other way. This split is almost as if we were trying to compartmentalize our suffocating shame and guilt for not living up to our own standards. The more we diverge, the louder we yell. The spiraling can be observed in politics just as well as at a supermarket checkout.

The pattern goes as follows: We gradually abandon ourselves first, then project this imbalance onto our surroundings and finally put our worries about the world on display for everyone to see — silently seeking empathy and comfort. We romanticize our martyrdom and call that love. But this isn't love. It is a pathological craving thereof; a mere image of caring for everyone, wanting to save the world, fighting for justice, when we can't even cultivate harmony in ourselves.

How can you teach someone to fish when you have never been to the sea? How can you talk about peace when you are at war with yourself? It is precisely because we struggle to figure out who we actually are, that we compensate for our lack of belonging, the lack of compassion for ourselves and for not feeling home within ourselves. And this compensation shows in the form of forcing our goodwill onto our environment.

But did we ever ask if the world wants to be saved by us, based on what we deem "right"? And how is that even possible when everyone is a self-styled expert who knows better? That's like eight billion magnets pushing each other away.

"Maintain oneself: Te becomes real."

It all starts here — not with the world, the country, the community and not with the family; but with oneself.

We have to be selfish first before we can be selfless. It's as simple as that. Focus on what is within your reach. That is: you. Literally everything else does not reside within your control. This shall not encourage a hyper-individualistic, ignorant way of life. Quite the opposite. It intends to say, if you pour all your effort into cultivating virtue / integrity / character, the rest will fall into place — including family, community, country and the world. So there is in fact nothing to worry about, no one else to care for, if only we put in the work.

If we were at peace on an individual level, how could there be war? If we were honest with ourselves, how could there be lies? If we learned what is enough, how could there be lack?