What Interests Me Most?

The social network revolution is in full force these days.

It’s common on these social network sites to be asked to reveal your interests.

That is, what interests me most?

And we’re advised to connect with other people and to feign a genuine interest in what is going on in their lives.

But in reality the underlying motive in all this is really self-interest, isn’t it?

We have something to sell so we try to connect with as many people as possible, under the guise of being “interested”, in order to subtly suggest that they buy.

The realization that people really don’t give a rat’s behind about anything but themselves is a lesson that often comes later in life.

As a general matter, they don’t care about, nor are they interested in, you or anything about you.

It kinda hurts…

Don’t believe it? Just try to start a blog and then get someone to actually pay attention to it…

It is the dawning of the realization that “survival of the fittest” means that you better look out for number one because nobody else is going to.

But is that the way it was meant to be?

Do you really think the creator of all that is, or god (if you believe in that sort of concept), really designed us to be little bastions of self-interest?

Have you ever met someone who is genuinely un-self-interested?

That is a rare person to come across.

I can’t say that I have, at least not in person.

I mean people like Mother Teresa and Gandhi come to mind, or Jesus.

People who really didn’t care about what was in it for them and worked hard and sacrificed even to the point of death to make life better for others.

How was life for them I wonder?

What is it like to be completely un-self-interested?

Is it liberating, or confining?

Does it bring joy, or misery, hardship and disappointment?

I wouldn’t know, being a person who has lived his 53 years relatively, say 90%, self-interested.

Take politicians for example. What is it that they’re really after?

Is it to serve the people, or just to get re-elected?

And why is getting re-elected so important?

What is it about Washington, D.C. that’s so enticing to them? I lived there for a year and it wasn’t all that.

I would venture a guess that 99.99% of them are more concerned about “what’s in this for me” than they are about “what’s in this for us”…

wouldn’t you agree?

But what if we really weren’t created to be so self-interested.

Maybe we were designed to be more like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, or even like Christ.

Maybe real success, fulfillment, joy and even abundance is found in being genuinely un-self-interested.

Just a thought.

Let’s face it, the correct answer to that frequent question about what interests me most is…

ME.

But maybe real “success” can be found in having the capacity to answer that question, truthfully, with a simple…

Y-O-U.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

Mother Teresa

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

Mohandas Gandhi

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus Christ in John 10:10

image credit: escapedtowisconsin via Compfight cc