Have you done anything selfless lately?

On 11^th July, my parents had held a havan yagna in celebration of Nandini’s and my 18^th birthday and regularly, it was mentioned that I have an obligation to serve three groups of people selflessly:

1) My parents because they have brought me into this world and have unconditionally loved me throughout the last 18 years of my life.

2) My family because they too have loved me unconditionally throughout the 18 years of my life and have been the backbone of all my successes.

3) My samaj because without the samaj, I could not have had the opportunities that I have had up to now.

And then my thoughts went immediately to 2 occasions. One was our first Abhyaas Varg in Leicester and the other was an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, within both of which was discussed this idea of selflessness. In F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Phoebe constantly tried to prove Joey wrong, sure of the fact that there are selfless good deeds. Towards the end of the episode we seem unconvinced of her point, as all her attempts spark good feelings inside her which must mean that these deeds have benefitted her in some way and hence are not selfless!

However, at the Abhyaas Varg, we made a slightly different conclusion. This was because we looked at selflessness in a different light. We started with a scenario much like prisoner’s dilemma and we found that every time we played, we would act out of self-interest. This actually lead to everybody, including ourselves finishing worse off than if we had all co-operated and found a solution together. Hence, we were working selfishly. However, if we had worked together, and acted out of the interest of everybody else, everybody would have been better off and this would have still been selfless work, because even though we benefit from our action, our thoughts go out to the samaj first. We concluded that self-interest would always be there but does this mean that a deed is not selfless? What does selfless mean?

A selfless deed is one in which those around you benefit more than you do from carrying out the deed. You are effectively outputting more benefits than you are receiving.

And so, after the havan, I introspected, and asked myself, have I done anything selfless lately? Finding it difficult to say that I had, I immediately wanted to remedy that! I shall not say what I have done because I do not want praise for my deed but ever since, I have vowed that I will commit one selfless good deed at least once a day, so that when I ask myself, “have I done anything selfless lately” I can always answer “yes, actually, I have.” Now I would like to ask you, the reader, “have you done anything selfless lately?” If not, then fix it!