A large part of parenting is about managing weariness and motivation. Much of the success of parenting is about avoiding the sins of "omission" as well as "commission. " You can feed, clothe, and house your kids and not really parent them. When we raise kids for selfish reasons (to feel proud, to have people love us and appreciate us), if they disappoint us we'll pull back. But when we realize that God has called us to raise godly children and God is always worthy to be obeyed, we have a motivation that goes beyond our own pride and our own comfort.
Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.
And books that were published in much larger numbers than Selfish, Little are hard to find. And publishers who wanted to publish my last few works have them stuck in limbo while new distribution ideas and legal issues and fears are blown away.
Pat has been instrumental in what we've done here so far and the most selfish thing for me is that I want to see what we've done placed in the hands of the most competent person, and that's Pat. No one would come close to being able to continue to build on what we've done here so far like he will.
The left think that this special place in the world, the United States of America, it just happened. It just is. And it's our responsibility, as those who are lucky and fortunate enough, to happen to have been born here. It is incumbent upon us to share that same luck and good fortune with everybody else. Otherwise we are mean, selfish, polarized, partisan, extremist, racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, whatever.
i hate leaving places i love i was never at one place long. am i selfish?
Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves.
Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness and expandedness, to an exceeding smallness and contractedness. . . Before, his soul was under the government of the noble principles of divine love, whereby it was enlarged to the comprehensiveness of all his fellow creatures and their welfare. . . [But] sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness, and God was forsaken, and man retired within himself, and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles and feelings.
Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of patriotism is the spirit of the dog and wolf. The moment there is a misunderstanding about a boundary line or a hamper of fish or some other squalid matter, see patriotism rise, and hear him split the universe with is war-whoop. The spirit of patriotism being in its nature jealous and selfish, is just in man's line, it comes natural to him - he can live up to all its requirements to the letter; but the spirit of Christianity is not in its entirety possible to him.
Under private property, each tries to establish over the other an alien power, so as thereby to find satisfaction of his own selfish need. The increase in the quantity of objects is therefore accompanied by an extension of the realm of the alien powers to which man is subjected, and every new product represents a new potentiality of mutual swindling and mutual plundering.
Mr. Lincoln was generous by nature, and though his whole heart was in the war, he could not but respect the valor of those opposed to him. His soul was too great for the narrow, selfish views of partisanship. Brave by nature himself, he honored bravery in others, even his foes.
By nice women. . . you probably mean selfish women who have no more thought for the underprivileged, overworked women than a pussycat in a sunny window for the starving kitten in the street. Now in that sense I am not a nice woman, for I do care.
Before my accident I was a little too. . . selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed.
If you want to be wisely selfish, care for others
I am afraid of reduction. After a lifetime's independence- yes, selfish independence- I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals. I don't want to sit in my chair and be fed, much less do I want to be handed over to medical professionals.
Great leaders have to know when to divide that line from being selfless to being selfish, and he perfectly chose the time to be selfish and made plays.
I know too much; I've seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary. So I am learning to pretend, to smile, to nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.
But the most important lesson I have learned in my twenty years or research on morality is that nearly all people are morally motivated. Selfishness is a powerful force, particularly in the decisions of individuals, but whenever groups of people come together to make a sustained effort to change the world, you can bet that they are pursuing a vision of virtue, justice, or sacredness.
Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect
And, selfish and scared, I wonder how much more he has to give.