Skip to content
Artwork for The School of Life
The School of Life · Today · 5 min

How To Be Selfish

We are used to thinking very badly of selfishness. But knowing how – at points – to put ourselves first can be the precondition for our later generosity and true helpfulness to others. Being selfish has a role to play in later selflessness. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/59t5i Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/ILarW FURTHER READING “We’re highly attuned to the notion that being selfish is one of the worst character traits we might possess, a way of behaving associated with greed, entitlement and cruelty. And yet some of the reason we fail to have the lives we should springs from an excess of the very opposite trait: from an overweaning modesty, an over-hasty deference to the wishes of others, a dangerous and counter-productive lack of selfishness...” You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/Hm3EFc MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Tom Kemp https://vimeo.com/user26596912 #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

0:00-5:46

transcript

No transcript — this publisher did not publish one.

show notes

We are used to thinking very badly of selfishness. But knowing how – at points – to put ourselves first can be the precondition for our later generosity and true helpfulness to others. Being selfish has a role to play in later selflessness. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/59t5i Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/ILarW FURTHER READING “We’re highly attuned to the notion that being selfish is one of the worst character traits we might possess, a way of behaving associated with greed, entitlement and cruelty. And yet some of the reason we fail to have the lives we should springs from an excess of the very opposite trait: from an overweaning modesty, an over-hasty deference to the wishes of others, a dangerous and counter-productive lack of selfishness...” You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/Hm3EFc MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Tom Kemp https://vimeo.com/user26596912 #TheSchoolOfLife

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

links1