All in yourself: how to stop suffering from your own egoism?

The call from Tula turned out to be on time as never before…

I would describe my condition last week as follows.

Feeling lost, useless. Irritability from scratch, jealousy, panic attacks and apathy. Resentment for the whole world and self-pity.

The diagnosis is an overdose of selfishness. This condition is quite difficult to diagnose on your own, as you quickly get used to it. Time passes, and nothing seems to have changed, but if you remember yourself a couple of months ago or ask your loved ones, the difference becomes obvious. The freshness of perception of the world, the joy of living the moment and the lightness of being go somewhere.

The elevator is stuck between floors and I’m inside. I’m scared, the call button doesn’t work. The elevator is called Ego. In general, I have a big confusion with this egoism. Since childhood. I would like to understand once and for all: is it good to be an egoist or bad, and how to finally stop suffering about this?

From bourgeois egoism to reasonable

At first (in Soviet childhood and youth) I was told that selfishness is disgusting. That everyone should share with everyone. Candy, books, money, etc. Unpleasant types were called egoists in the cinema, who thought only of themselves, dragged everything into the house in a petty-bourgeois way, and in the end, because of them, a factory exploded or bandits ran away, and the whole society expressed reinforced concrete condemnation to them. As a pioneer, I did not want to be a bourgeois egoist, so I learned to hide my desires. First from others, and then from yourself. It seemed shameful to me to want something material only for myself, when the whole country, malnourished, is building communism for everyone.

Then the word «Freud» was not abusive, it was rather defiant, such as «sex», «immigrant» or «Jew». But it was in connection with the name of the founder of psychoanalysis that I first learned other words — Ego, Super-Ego, etc. etc. For the first time, selfishness was presented to me not as a disgusting quality, but as a normal property of human nature, protecting the “I” from the influence of the outside world. Later I learned that there is a reasonable selfishness, when a person consciously chooses to prioritize their personal goals over any others, and this is, like, cool. Then there was no Soviet country, and I was completely confused.

From simple desires to meaningful desires

Suppose a reasonable egoist considers his goals a priority. Are all goals good? Do I need to achieve them all or selectively? Is it necessary to strive to satisfy all desires? Is that all right?

I have a positive experience in the psychological rehabilitation of disabled people after serious traumatic brain injuries and prolonged coma. Once I was invited to work with such a patient. He was a handsome man, in his early 30s, a successful businessman. At night, in his car at high speed, he drove into an unlit truck that was parked on the side of the road. And he ended up for a long time (if, alas, not forever) confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk and talk. Physiological departures worked normally. They cynically say about such people: “vegetable”.

Client in my profile. I start work. It was important to cling to something in order to “rock” it. The easiest way was to join the desires of Alexei (let’s call him that) — those that have been preserved. He loved apples. He often asked for them from his parents with signs. I put an apple on the table in front of him and waited for a reaction when he had the motive to take the apple himself. At first, Lesha asked with his eyes for a long time, then he began to slowly move his hand towards the apple, the tension grew, just about he had to reach his goal …

At this time, a loving parent (father or mother) appeared, watching how the child was “tormented”, and out of the kindness of his soul inserted an apple into the child’s hand.

Unfortunately, it was useless to explain something to these wonderful people (teachers of Moscow State University). They literally strangled their son with their own guardianship. They were so intoxicated with grief that they did not hear my arguments. Or maybe grief has nothing to do with it. They wanted to give their son everything, to predict all desires, even those that do not exist. Father even took prostitutes to him several times, who physiologically successfully (on Alexei’s part) did their job.

This case showed me how important meaningful desires are, because they make us human, form our goals and make us move towards them. The more inaccessible the goal, the greater should be the motive for achieving it.

When Desires Become Obsessions

For some reason, right now I remembered about Captain Ahab*. Remember? There is a desire for revenge. There is a goal — the white whale Moby Dick. Virtually unattainable. There is a motive, the most powerful and destructive — to kill the enemy (real or imaginary — it does not matter). But there is also an obsession that kills Captain Ahab himself and his entire crew.

It is at this point that selfishness turns into a disease: when obsessive desires appear. Taking over the whole being. When I know exactly what the result should be, and do not allow any options. I start self-poisoning. Symptoms are at the beginning of the text.

The girl does not love me the way I want, the producer does not answer me when necessary, does not accept all my scripts with a bang, friends — they are not friends at all — do they not guess HOW to be friends with me? The list is endless.

And yet. You do, you do what you think is right and necessary, you carry out the most complicated project, necessary (and financial), and now the work is done, the money is received, the contract is signed, everyone is happy, but for some reason there is no joy.

And it happens that something will simply distract you from what you wanted more than anything in the world, and you can’t even remember what you wanted there so passionately and furiously?

Pause selfishness

The truth is, I don’t know what I need. The happiest things in my life came unplanned when I did something new and didn’t expect anything. And I get much more pleasure from the process than from the result.

I read somewhere that happiness is reality minus expectations. Notice, not desires, namely expectations. If I can’t change reality (and no one can), then the only thing left is to lower expectations, or better yet, completely abandon them. This is what Buddhists do, for example, simply by perceiving the world around them without thinking.

I can’t do anything with my selfishness. I can’t cut it off or throw it away. It’s like a hand, heart or eye color. I can’t even make it smaller.

The only thing I can do is see its manifestations in my daily introspection and test the truth of my assumptions with the help of another person.

And I can put my own selfishness on pause.

It happens when I selflessly help others. Actually, this is the only thing that helps me get out of my own head for a while and stop rearing myself up, offended by the whole world for living its own life. For example, I regularly help chemically addicted people for free.

This was the call from Tula — I was invited to speak at a seminar for alcoholics and drug addicts and talk about possible methods for solving the problem. I agreed, even though I did not want to go, all day in the car — 400 km there and back. I don’t know how helpful I was to these people. I can only guess. But I know that I myself need this first of all, my soul needs it so as not to dissolve in the sulfuric acid of obsession with my own person. As a rule, it is at these moments that the most needed calls are heard. It is only important to have time to say “yes” to the offer of fate, and not to refuse, habitually shrugging it off. I also feel at this time, when I work for free with others, how I become real, without masks and expectations.

Today I was invited to a similar seminar for addicts in Moscow. I agreed, although for this I had to abandon the football with friends planned a week ago.

I am an egoist: helping others is good for me, and I know it. Selflessness is a profitable thing. Something like this.

^* The protagonist of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, or the White Whale.