A DIFFERENT QUESTION

Who Told You That Was Selfish?

THE JOURNAL · 7 MIN READ

When we were children, many of us were taught to share.

You have something. Another child wants it. You don't particularly want to give it to them.

“Don't be selfish.”

“Let them have a turn.”

“Think about how they feel.”

On the surface, there is nothing remarkable about this. Learning to coexist with other people requires some degree of consideration. We cannot move through the world entirely indifferent to the people around us.

But I wonder if another lesson sometimes slipped in unnoticed.

I remember moments when siblings or classmates had things they didn't want to share with me. I understood their position because I sometimes felt exactly the same way. I had things I didn't want to share either.

Except sometimes my refusal came with a diagnosis of character:

You're being selfish.

Suddenly, the issue wasn't simply that one person wanted something and another person didn't want to give it to them.

My preference had acquired a moral problem.

I've thought about that word differently as an adult.

Selfish.

It is an interesting accusation because it often appears when two people's wants collide.

One person wants you to do something.

You don't want to do it.

Which person is being selfish?

We tend to examine the person saying no. Why won't you help? Why can't you compromise? Why can't you think about someone besides yourself?

But what about the request?

Why does someone else's desire for my participation automatically deserve more scrutiny than my desire not to participate?

Perhaps neither person is wrong.

Perhaps two people simply want different things.

That possibility becomes even more interesting in adulthood, when the object being shared is no longer a toy.

It may be your time.

Your money.

Your career.

Your home.

Your plans.

Your attention.

Your availability.

Your life.

Someone may have an opinion about what you should do with one of them. Sometimes that opinion is requested. Sometimes it simply arrives.

And because the person cares about us—or because we care about them—we may feel obligated to consider it.

But consideration can quietly become something else.

Someone says, “I'll be disappointed if you do that.”

And suddenly their disappointment enters the decision.

Maybe we delay.

Maybe we explain ourselves more than we intended.

Maybe we change the plan.

Maybe we proceed anyway but feel guilty while doing it.

That is the part I find curious.

What exactly have we done wrong?

There is a difference between another person experiencing an emotion about my decision and my decision being an offense against that person.

Those two things are remarkably easy to confuse.

Someone can be disappointed that I am leaving without my leaving being wrong.

Someone can dislike how I spend my money without having authority over how I spend it.

Someone can wish I were available without my unavailability becoming a failure of character.

Someone can want something from me while I simply do not want to give it.

Their feeling can be real. My decision can remain mine.

Perhaps the more interesting question begins when someone's feeling becomes an argument.

Imagine an adult child deciding to move across the country.

A parent may be sad. That sadness doesn't have to be manufactured or manipulative. They may genuinely wish their child lived nearby.

But there is a subtle difference between:

I'm going to miss you.

and

How could you leave us?

The first describes an emotion.

The second assigns responsibility for it.

Now the person leaving has something else to carry.

Guilt.

And guilt is powerful because it can make an otherwise legitimate decision feel suspicious.

It asks us to reconsider.

To justify.

To soften.

To compensate.

Sometimes to abandon the decision entirely.

But perhaps guilt deserves its own examination before it is allowed to participate.

If I violated one of my values, broke a commitment, deceived someone, or knowingly caused harm, there is something concrete for me to confront.

But what about guilt when none of those things happened?

What if the only offense is that someone else doesn't like what I chose?

That is where I have become much less willing to automatically accept guilt as evidence that something is wrong.

There was a time when another person's disappointment could weigh heavily in my decisions. Today, I see the responsibility differently.

If someone is disappointed by a decision I am making about my own life, I am interested in another question:

Why has my choice become responsible for your emotional experience?

That isn't the same as saying other people's feelings are meaningless.

It is asking where responsibility for those feelings belongs.

If my decision concerns my life, my circumstances, my desires, and the consequences I am prepared to accept, another person's consideration of my situation does not automatically become an invitation into it.

They can have an opinion.

I can hear it.

Neither requires me to surrender authorship.

And perhaps the person experiencing disappointment has questions available to them too.

Why does this person's choice bother me?

What did I expect them to do instead?

Why did I expect that?

Does their decision actually harm me, or is it simply different from what I wanted?

Am I asking them to reconsider because their decision is wrong—or because I would prefer another outcome?

Those questions rarely receive the same attention as the familiar accusation:

Are you being selfish?

Maybe that is because we learned very early to examine the person holding the toy.

We didn't always examine the person reaching for it.

There is another side to this that matters to me.

No one is an island.

I believe there is value in the people we encounter and in the circumstances that place us alongside one another. Another person can offer a perspective I would never have reached on my own. An uncomfortable conversation can reveal something. So can disagreement. So can disappointment.

But perhaps the value of an interaction is not always what the other person believes it should be.

Someone may enter a conversation believing they are there to change my mind. I may leave the same conversation more certain that I don't want what they want for me.

That doesn't make the interaction meaningless.

It may have done exactly what I needed it to do.

We encounter people who show us possibilities we hadn't considered. Others clarify what we value. Some make us question a direction. Others make us more certain of it. Even an experience we would rather not repeat can tell us something about what we prefer.

What we take from those encounters is influenced by what we believe, what we value, what we notice, and what we are willing to examine.

Perhaps that is why guilt concerns me.

Guilt can become so loud that we stop examining the interaction itself.

Instead of asking, What is this showing me? we ask, What should I do so no one feels badly about me?

Instead of noticing that someone's reaction has clarified something important, we begin negotiating with ourselves to make their reaction disappear.

And in doing so, we may miss the value of the moment entirely.

Maybe the person disagreeing with you isn't there to redirect you.

Maybe the disagreement is what finally makes your own direction visible.

I don't think consideration is the problem.

Consideration allows us to understand that our lives exist alongside other lives. It allows generosity, cooperation, kindness, and genuine care.

But consideration and authority are not the same thing.

Understanding your disappointment does not necessarily mean reorganizing my life around it.

Recognizing your preference does not make it my obligation.

And caring about you does not automatically mean wanting what you want me to want.

Maybe some of the guilt we carry deserves less obedience and more curiosity.

Not:

How do I stop being selfish?

But:

Who told me this was selfish in the first place?

And if no value was violated, no promise was broken, and no genuine harm was done—

what exactly is the guilt asking me to answer for?