Selfishness

We have met our share of selfish people. I don't have any wise words to say about these people or how to deal with them. I just want to write that I have met selfish, deceiving and lying people.

I was blessed during my college years (BSc, MSc and PhD) to have really nice friends who helped me enjoy my college years and have a good social life. I never felt like I missed out on anything. Some of my friends were so nice and so helpful that they made me want to emulate them. We would do anything for each other.  Those were really the good 8 years of my life....

Ever since my working years, I have encountered selfish people in each of the work environment.  Why? Maybe its the competitiveness nature of the environment or just a personality clash, but it was always very painful for me.  These people have been so incredibly selfish that they have managed to ruin some of the best years of my life. I could have achieved a lot more, accomplished so much more if only I had a colleague who would have just kept their poisonous tentacles away from me.

Luckily during these times I have had very good friends....for most part. There have been only one or two who have sucked the life out of me. And of course friends end up hurting us more than our colleagues. There is a lot more intimacy between friends than colleagues.

Relatives can also be selfish - and they are related to you, so it is hard to get away from them. Sometimes you cannot do enough for some of them, they keep expecting more and more.

I think selfish people have no empathy or sympathy. They exist in an emotional void where the only emotion they know is their own; the only problems they see are their own. They are the center of their world and they cannot imagine why others cannot see that fact.

I find selfish people emotionally draining. I have the habit of thinking and rethinking of situations that have occurred in my life, so I can assess what I could have done differently or in some cases I just cannot get some things out of my mind. And the more I think about the selfish people, the more I realize there is not much I could have done, because it was not me - it was them.  The only thing I could have done was stay away from them, which sometimes was not a possibility or it was too late.

In some cases I feel that I was aiming to please my friends/relatives; in some cases I was a little gullible and trusted too quickly. I always want to see the best in people and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. But people take advantage of this nature. They manipulate and abuse the relationship.

I don't think there is any getting away from such people as it always takes time to figure them out and by that time - the deeds done!