Selfishness disguised as Self-Improvement

The Self-Help (or Self-Improvement) movement has been around in one form or another for as long as anyone can tell.  Most religious texts, in one way or another, are guides on how we should live towards the aim of becoming better people and more conscious human beings.  And depending on which movement of faith or devotion resonates with you  - these are altruistic goals which are both noble and fundamentally good in their pursuits.  The predominate message in all of these texts is that the path to becoming a better person, and how to enrich your human experience is to help your fellow man and that  the greatest good is in helping others.  

Somewhere during the 1970's the goals behind self-improvement took a drastic turn.  It went from a popularized message of "helping your fellow man" to "looking out for number one."  Namely, the focus became on the self, and putting one's own needs and desires before and above all others.  In other words: don't worry about others - just worry about helping yourself.  Hence: " self help ".   This focus on the self gained momentum during the 1970's, though it really didn't start to take off until the 1980's - a decade nicknamed the "ME" decade for these reasons.  Since then, a massive industry has flourished under this premise, generating billions each year and creating several self-styled guru millionaires in the process. 

Go into any Barnes and Noble and browse the "Self Improvement" section.  You'll find countless books and guides telling you how to, among other things: "Become a Better You", "Create the Life you Want", "[You can] Heal your life",  "How to be Happier 7 Days a week", "Learn to Manifest your desires" and so on, ad nauseum. 

Open the paper on any given Sunday and you'll find countless ads for seminars guaranteeing to teach you the skills for, among other things: "The Millionaire Mindset", "Creating Wealth In All Areas of Your Life", "Living an Extraordinary Life", and "Creating Breakthroughs in your Spiritual Emotional and Personal Life."  Usually, these are low-priced introductory seminars with the intention of luring you into a large-scale sales pitch, which will be presented to you during the introductory seminar.  The sales pitch of course, for further future seminars, usually costing thousands of dollars, where you are told you will learn the more intensive lessons and teachings from the presenting guru/teacher.

Watch cable television late at night - usually after 12:30am.  Tony Robbins has amassed a global empire along with billions of dollars by selling CD's and DVD's filled with common sense knowledge to millions of overweight and low self-esteem plagued insomniacs. 

The message from all of these various different outlets is fundamentally the same:  Forsake others and only look out for yourself.  You are the most important person in the world.  You deserve to have every material excess you desire.  Do whatever you want, for yourself, all of the time, regardless of how it might effect anyone else.

Although this message is probably intended (in it's most noblest sense) to be one of empowerment to people unsure of their footing in the world, and to give them confidence in forging out directions that they may be uncertain of - it also comes with a weighty downside.  Laying underneath this mantra of moral immunity is a darker affirmation that embeds itself in the minds of its adherents.

And that message is:  Be Selfish.  In fact, be unashamedly selfish. 

Being selfish under the guise of self-improvement is a message that is becoming more readily accepted all of the time in our current culture of narcissistic self-promotion.  One might argue that being selfish and self-serving is in fact helpful and possibly even necessary in the pursuits of achieving one's personal goals.  Our question in opposition to that mindset is a simple one:  At What Cost?

The negative effects from the pervasive though process of oblivious selfishness that permeates throughout the self-help movement are difficult to deny.  In people's efforts to achieve more self-esteem or a more fulfilling outlook on life, the movement itself has swung the pendulum to such an extreme that it is creating a culture of self-obsessed narcissists.  To be so completely focused on your own emotional health, your own sense of self and the obtainment of your own desires in in fact the very definition of narcissism.   And narcissism is the most extreme form of selfishness.  Narcissists are, by their very nature, self-serving and self-aggrandizing.  And they're tiresome.  Spend time with any narcissistic person and you'll quickly grow tired of hearing how much they've been "working on themselves", how "spiritual" they are, and how they wish others could just "see the world they way that they did and they would be happier."  This attitude is both condescending and off putting to nearly everyone around them.

Not all narcissists are gurus.  But all self-professed Gurus ARE narcissists.  And unfortunately, what the followers and customers of these gurus fail to realize is that the message they're ingesting from these books, seminars and sermons delivered by these Gurus is this:

Guru:  "If you want to be successful, happy and achieve everything you want in the world - you just have to be like me."

Translation:  "To be like me, you must become a narcissist."

And a growing culture of narcissists is a very tiresome culture indeed.

A simple alternative to this:  Stop thinking about yourself all of the time.  Start putting others ahead of you from time to time.  Do things for the betterment of others rather than just for your own self-advancement.  You'll find that in doing this, people will like you more, you'll be doing good, and your self esteem will increase simply through knowing that you're helping your fellow man.  It's a fundamentally simple attitude to adopt, and one that has the potential for spreading something positive within society.  Rather than the alternative - attitude of the self-obsessed that merely starts and ends with you and stands to benefit no one in the long run.