Discussing the Need for Community Support
There is such a thing as healthy selfishness. It is unhealthy selfishness that hurts our communities, families, and selves. Both healthy and unhealthy selfish behaviors, however, stem from hereditary traits that guarantee our species' survival. It is when we put our immediate interests aside, including essential ones, that our species, i.e. our families and communities, is able to thrive. In fact, by putting the needs and wants of others ahead of our own in cooperative, constructive efforts, we are able to thrive as individuals. Unfortunately, our modern society rewards us for unhealthy selfishness instead of encouraging healthy selfishness and selflessness.
For those who are essentially human doormats, recognizing the need to be selfish in certain circumstances is absolutely critical, especially in our modern society. Sadly, selflessness should be rewarded, but we tend to treat charity as a burden of the noble, not the community. Whether talking about overly self-sacrificing parents or friendly neighbors who just cannot say, "no," the well-being of such people depends on their ability to fulfill their own needs and wants. Of course, there are also those who forgo their family and community's well-being on a constant basis and the damage done can only be healed by prioritizing those closest to us above outsiders.
On the other end of the spectrum, greedy individuals, who ensure they get what they want without regard for the needs of others, tend to hurt their communities with their egocentricities. Having experienced a mentality of "greed is good," our society has enjoyed some rather immediate, yet relatively small benefits by indulging the self-serving behaviors of others, but we have also felt the devastating costs of such recklessness. Consequently, those who are driven to behave so poorly need to be pushed to act socially responsible through positive peer pressure, community building initiatives, and public policies that encourage healthy, pro-social behavior.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as a truly self-made man. What helps people succeed as individuals and members of their communities is support. Success comes with the support of family, friends, colleagues, and other members of our communities. As such, supporting family and community allows us all to be far more successful in general. This is why, as an example our society has embraced, the privileged wealthy have long built their legacies by investing in their children's education. Beyond family, working to improve our communities, even when it does not directly benefit us, is the only way we can thrive as countries, communities, and people.
Finally, the idea of community support is nothing new. Not only have the earliest human civilizations embraced these elementary principles that our modern society has prospered under, almost every religion has preached a need to care for and support our fellow man. While self-preservation helps our species survive, humanity has thrived thanks to our altruistic traits. In a modern world where selfless behavior is often seen as a costly oddity while selfish acts are rewarded with material gain, we need to remind ourselves that we must go beyond our immediate interests, if we are to see a better tomorrow.