Quote:
Originally Posted by Onward2wards
Doing good for others is a worthy act. However, if you do good for others at the expense of your own dreams or possibly even your sense of identity, I don't see that as desirable. What if people you were trying to help wanted thing X in their lives, and someone told them it's selfish and they don't deserve it? What if thing X in that person's life was the very thing you were trying to help them obtain?
It seems to me you have a long list of unwritten obligations or rules you are laboring under. Valuing yourself and standing up for your personal choices is apparently not on that list. Why is it bad to value oneself as much as one values anyone else?  |
I don't see it as desirable either, for anyone, unless that is your dream and identity. The idea is that all human lives are equal, so we need to save as many disadvantaged lives as possible. Someone having a chance at living is more important than a healthy, privileged person's "fulfilment". You can't even think about self-fulfilment if you're sick, starving, and/or dying.
I'm trying to restore a kind of cognitive normalcy, making myself research old interests, engage old fantasies, watch mindless entertainment. Trying to push the guilt away, or dissolve it. Isn't that pathetic? "The suffering of others and my immense moral duty is too unbearable so I'm just going to drown myself in my privilege so I don't have to think about it." Pure cognitive dissonance. Or am I just trying to cure unnecessary guilt?
It's not even that I care about the issue very much; I just want to be in the right. This is kind of a new "value", though you're right, I do have a list of sorts.
Hell, I even catch myself in guilt over self-improvement, or ideas to do things more in line with my Self, but that aren't "good" in a manner approved by a particular, smarter, better group. I feel like I've heard this before.