Selfless pursuits versus Selfish pursuits

Lets say you come across two people while you are out running errands. The first person you encounter is an old acquaintance. You all begin catching up and out of nowhere they say, “I just donated $500 to this organization.”  You wonder, “Why did they tell me that?” The second person you run into is an acquaintance as well. You all have a casual conversation. They share with you that they were inspired by a friend who recently donated their time to paint a community center. It made them want to do more and serve others in some way.

Both people are good people with well intentions. However, each one has a different pursuit. One is selfish and the other is selfless. The picture above illustrates a problem that all of us have encountered at some point. We are out with our friends, on a date or with family. However, we can’t seem to put down our phones or casually check them EVERY FIVE MINUTES.

What is going on? One possibility is that we are too engaged in selfish pursuits. We are too concerned with every ding or vibration that our phones make. We’ve become so distracted with our phones that we are unaware of the ONE MESSAGE we are constantly sending to others in our company, YOU”RE REALLY NOT THAT IMPORTANT TO ME AT THIS MOMENT.

This can be problematic to friendships, relationships, even our jobs. I come from the generation where technology and the internet has revolutionized the world. However, with that we’ve become the “distracted generation” as Simon Sinek puts it in his book, Leaders Eat Last. The distracted generation as he puts it, thinks in most cases that they have ADHD, when in reality we have a dopamine induced addiction to distractions, such as social media and cell phones.

We’ve become so programmed to getting the instant information and gratification that we are giving a lot of ourselves to little things, like cell phones, emails, tweets and posts. Versus giving a little bit of ourselves to the bigger things, like our relationships, jobs, education or serving others.

Taking responsibility for ones actions must take place when we are performing our actions, not when we get caught. Passive aggressive people (selfish) will always find an excuse rather than take the responsibility for their actions. A person who is self-aware (most of the time selfless) will own up to their actions and offer an apology.

Even though our materialistic possessions and messages arrive the same day we want them, due to how awesome our technology is! Our careers, relationships and happiness do not.

The next time you are out with company and your phone buzzes. Think of your relationships, careers and happiness and the message you want to send.

Are you a selfish purser or a selfless purser? 

PS…Today marks a year with WordPress! My writings shouldn’t be about the numbers, it is hard not to want to day dream that I’m being read by thousands of people. More importantly though, would it be a great significance if thousands read my posts and took nothing from it or only 30 people read it and a handful of them find it of substance? The latter is what matters.