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Chapter Sixteen In Chapter 3, you first read about character tags. Now, we are going to learn more about what that means. Just how do you read someone's character tags? How do you assess someone else's character? Character is the underlying motivation (or cause) of the words or actions of other people. Understanding their character is the key to knowing others better. First, we are going categorize people into two types. Most of us have met these two types of people. In any given moment in time, any of us could be in one or the other of these two categories. Let's name them:
Have you ever met a selfish person? It is certain that you have -- perhaps many of them! When we interact with selfish people, we find that they put their own interests ahead of other's interests. Unfortunately, most all of us do this at least occasionally. We may not intend it to happen that way. It just happens effortlessly. No one needs special training on how to be selfish. As babies, we knew about that before we learned to talk or walk. Commonly, one of the first words we learn is "mine". It appears to be important for us to learn from the very start what is mine vs. what is yours. If it is mine, then keep your hands off it! Right? Don't we all learn this clearly in the first year of our life? As soon as we begin to play with other children, our parents or teachers tell us we must learn to share. Every culture teaches that sharing is a virtue. If someone has too much, and we don't have enough, we like them to share it with us. However, when we have too much, and someone wants us to share with him or her, we may think it is best to save some for ourselves for later. Now, technology has increased into this wonderful age of the internet. As never before in the history of humanity, sharing has become easy. In fact, it has become so easy that now we are told, "Do not share!" The three most common things to put on the short list of what constitutes a selfish person are:
It seems as though most all of us love to disagree. Think about it!
However, no matter where you live; no matter what language you speak, we all agree that we do not like it when someone tells us a lie, steals from us, or cheats us. Our first premise is: Therefore, it would be easy enough to say that being selfless or unselfish is the opposite of being selfish. So, when we speak or act, if we do not cause harm, insult, or injury to another, are we being selfless? Perhaps not. |