Selfishness is the enemy of a lasting relationship. If we love a person, we accept the total person, with all the defects, because those defects are part of the person. We should never try to change a person we love, let the person change on his/her own for the sake of the relationship.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others. -Ouida

I have learned that the secret of long and lasting relationship is treating love like a precious plant. We can't just leave it in a container and expect that it' is going to get on by itself. We have to keep watering it; really look after it and nurture it. I have also learned that no one falls in love by choice, only by chance; no one stays in love by chance, only with mutual (not selfish) efforts and hard work; no one falls out of love by chance, only by choice.

Selfishness, a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.―George Eliot

Love is always ready to deny itself, to give, sacrifice, just in the measure of its sincerity and intensity. Perfect love is perfect self-forgetfulness. Hence where there is love, unselfishness is the law. We forget ourselves and live for others. But where there is selfishness, it mars joy.

One selfish soul will destroy the sweetness of life in any home or society. It is like an ugly bush in the midst of a garden of flowers. It was selfishness that destroyed the first home and shattered all the loveliness of Paradise (Remember Adam and Eve?); and it has been damaging lovely things on earth ever since. We need to guard against this selfish spirit.

Self-absorption in all its forms, kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom larger. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and become seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection or compassionate action.

Selfishness, self-centeredness that we think, is the root of our troubles. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

By Tim Pedrosa


  

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. ― Stephen Kendrick

Tim