Be Altruistically Selfish

There is a great episode on one of my all-time favorite shows “Friends.”  In the episode Joey debates Phoebe on whether good deeds can ever be selfless.  Phoebe says, that many people do good things and they are selfless, but Joey begs to differ, saying “there are no selfless good deeds, ever.”  He goes on to explain that if you do something nice and it helps someone and that makes you feel good, the deed in itself was not selfless.

 

Rather than talking semantics of whether doing something nice for others is selfless or not, it is certainly something we should do more often.  If more and more people go a little bit out of their way to simply do nice things for each other, there will be a monumental shift in our attitudes and the global attitude on the planet.  Imagine a world, where we work hard on a daily basis to do nice things for people.  They then react by paying it forward to others and so on.  This will have a dynamic shift in our planet and the way others are affected and it could create a very euphoric world.  

But you may say, it is hard to continually go out of your way to help others or to be nice.  Sometimes you may not be in a good mood, and that also makes it very difficult for you to be nice or happy.  However, if you follow my method of being “Altruistically Selfish,” every good deed you do, as selfless as it may appear, will also have its rewards.  You just have to learn to recognize the feelings you receive from doing

nice things for others.  

The confusion may lie, with the thought of expectation.  For example:  You hold the door for someone, and you expect them to say thank you, or hold the door back.  If they fail to do so, for whatever reason, and there may be many, then you may be disappointed.  Your expectation of the reaction to your good deed, causes you pain or aggravation.  So when looking at this, you may want to rid yourself of expectation and just look for the happiness it brings you, when in return, it is bringing the person happiness as well. 

Thinking this way is healthy for you and is very rewarding.  I also want to touch on forgiveness.  When we forgive someone who has done something wrong to us, we tend to see this as a selfless deed.  We are forgiving them for the wrong doing, releasing them of the pain.  While this may be true for those that truly realize what they did is wrong, then we also do forgive for ourselves. Forgiveness, as it may be looked at as a good deed, it is also another Altruistically Selfish deed.  Of course I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it relieves you of the pain, anguish and continual stress that you may carry around with you, when you harbor ill will toward someone. So when you forgive someone and let go, of that emotion, you not only do it for them, you do it for yourself as well. 

I know this may not be as easy as it seems, but you must remind yourself, forgiveness and Selfish Altruism has a direct benefit to you and those around you.  If you are happy, then those around you are happy too.

Letting Go - for your own sake!

When I was much younger, I was on a quest to take over the world and open up Ninjutsu Schools everywhere.  At one point we had 6 schools on Long Island, West Islip, East Islip, Bayshore, Port Jefferson, Sayville and Lindenhurst.   I had one in Brewster N.Y. as well as one in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Bermuda.  It was incredibly busy to say the least and I was away nearly two weekends per month, just visiting my schools.  My life of course changed when my daughter was born.  I no longer wanted to be away from her, so I changed my mindset and goals.  Through the quest for world domination I learned something very special about the law of detachment. 

As in any relationship - one of my schools, the only one with a partnership started to have some issues due to differences of opinion.  I wanted to move full force straight ahead and the student who ran my school was on a different level then I. I worked harder and it seemed I cared more about his future then he did or that was my observation at the time.  In any event, I decided to close the school and relieve myself of the stress and focus on the other locations, which I had full control of.  Well to say the least the relationship went downhill real fast and the student and I didn't speak for many years.  This bothered me, because in my eyes, I believed I did nothing but help this individual.  I later would realize, perception is reality for each person.  I am also sure he saw it differently.  To cut to the chase, he and I are now sociable and friendly and he apologized and gave me credit for helping teach him all that I did. He is a quite successful school owner now.  I am proud of him and that I was a part of his upbringing.  

In any event, due to the stress I took a trip to train with Steven Seagal - take shihan, mega movie star and martial art icon.  While at the seminar during a question and answer section, I raised my hand to get some clarity on why this happened with my student and said "Sensei, I was wondering."  Before I could finish my sentence,  he looked at me with the Seagal stare and said, "let it go, allie."  I was shocked and he moved on to the next person.  I thought to myself, either this guy is a mind reader or he is pulling one of the best parlor tricks ever. How easy would it be for someone to say that to any question asked.  I was smarter, than to let that happen to me. So I raised my hand again and said "sensei what do you do if."  He cut me off again by waiving his hand and said, "Allie didn't I say - Let it go?"  I had chills run up my arms, and I do as I write this at the moment. But I couldn't give up at that.  I guess I wasn't ready to believe he was that good.  So I said "Sensei but."  He cut me off again and replied "Some students will come and go, some will leave on good terms, others will leave hating you for whatever their conscience makes them justify and feel good about themselves.  You just need to let your student go and make mistakes on his own.  I know one day he will come back around, mark my words."  

I looked at my student Frank Olmeda and we both stood there with our mouths open.  Seagal Sensei was amazing.  I was blown away.  That was the day - I realized when things happen, your frustration sometimes lies within you and your non ability to control the outcome.  If you can accept things for how they are, then your life will be filled with so much peace.  If you are doing bad things, you can correct your behavior, if you are not doing bad things, and people still do not like you, or they perceive in their own way, then you can't do anything to influence their view.  Remember you can't get frustrated at the rain, for coming out of the clouds, or the sun for creating heat.  You need to live in the moment and enjoy, life and breath.  Just let it go.........This is not as easy as it sounds, it takes work.  I am still working on it after all these years. I highly recommend, working at it.  It will create a life of bliss for you.

Learn Everyday from those around you! - Learn from every conversation.......

This is an interesting blog post, it speaks to the martial art students or student parents.  It is a shift in paradigm for those that may believe things to be the way they want to be. It helps educate the parents about the normal diagnosis or generalizing or comparing their children with others.

Tell me what you think. I would love for you to share this with other parents.

The Pursuit of Happiness........

I posted this last year on this day, but it seemed so fitting to re-release it. I also wanted to ad a quick synopsis at the bottom for insight.......

"There are three hungers that people are trying to feed throughout their lives. The first is to connect deeply with the creative spirit of life. The second is to know and express your gifts and talents. The third is to know that our lives matter. Fulfillment comes from feeding these three hungers."

-- Richard Leider, executive

As Tony Robbins says "there is only one human goal and that is to experience happiness!" Sadly, there are many avenues to attain happiness.  Some are short term, RE: diet, drugs, alcohol, sex etc. While others are longer term - RE: a relationship, a new apartment, a move from one place to the next, from one state to another etc. Then there are is long term happiness - that lasts a lifetime. These long term happiness qualities are really developed with learning how to ward off short term happiness and creating good habits that turn into long term happiness. Creating a life-style that is pure, and consistent. This life style still includes short term happiness, but the experiences are the building blocks for the future. 

For example: As a teacher of the martial arts, I see students, join and train and have the time of their lives. (at that moment, this is short term happiness) Then they quit out of boredom or lack of discipline, because they have not created a habit, which develops long term happiness. The only see the lull after the high, from the initial fun in which they experience.  However, if they stick with it through the lull, the highs will become a regular occurrence and a better overall long term experience. 

We as humans in our current state of life, are always in search of happiness, however, we are too unfocused to stick with things and we continue to be in constant search of the pursuit of happiness or in search to find something that really clicks with us. This is actually the real issue in regards to long term happiness.  We as humans are very whimsical in regards to experiential events.  We love that high we get from a quick burst of adrenaline. For example: People join my martial art school kickboxing program, sign up, pay a deposit and pay monthly payments. Many of them show up at most for a few weeks and then they quit. Some blame the program, blame the music, blame the short term at the moment experience.  When the reality is, it is the same program, when they first started. The same hard, workout that burns calories. Yes, we create variety, we change the workout, change the music and much more. However, when the intiatial excitement dies down, the only thing left is creating good habits that last a life time, and finding enjoyment out of the experience and results, not the adrenaline rush, that comes initially.  

 

We need to remind ourselves and shift our paradigm from initial experience to long term benefits, creating a happiness from the end goal and the journey getting there.  This takes a discipline that most people lack these days.  If you have any questions on creating this mindset, ask your question below and I will give you some examples.