I used to love the television series, 'Friends'. I still watch an episode, now and then - there are some scenes and episodes that never fail to crack me up. I just love the character, Chandler. Absolutely hilarious.

But there's an episode that I just can't watch. It annoys the hell out of me, in fact. It is 'the one where' anti-capitalist hippie, Phoebe, wants to undertake a completely selfless act of charity, so she decides to give some money to a charity in such a way that she won't benefit from it. I can't remember exactly how it happened, but it transpires that, unwittingly, her gift did in fact make her feel good.

An analogy of this is a dog trying to bite its own tail. It spins in circles chasing its elusive tail, never catching up with it. You see, there was nothing selfless about Phoebe's donation right from the start. Why did she want to give to the charity? To make herself feel good. Read, selfish. It didn't matter how fast she span trying to catch up with her tail - she never would.

Whenever you help someone out, for example, by giving them a lift somewhere, or collecting a parcel for them, you do it because you feel good by helping that person. This is called, 'selfishness'. It is NOT being 'selfless' as the mystics and statists preach.

Selfishness has been given a bad reputation, and the sad thing is, people don't even know what it means anymore. Or rather, people refuse to acknowledge its true meaning. This is the lie that they have been living for centuries. This is the lie that will bury the human race if it is allowed to continue to exist.

So, what if you help someone out all the time and they never return the favour? What's happening here, is that you're giving value to them, but they're not giving value back to you. The two of you are both being selfish, since you're giving them a lift because you get joy out of helping them, and they're receiving the lift because it meets their needs.

If they continue to take the mickey like this, and you decide you now want to redress the balance by not helping them anymore, you're doing so because you respect yourself and you don't want to carry on giving away your value for free - you're being selfish here, too. And that's fine!

Any time you do something selfless, what you're doing is something that doesn't make your 'self' feel good. There is nothing noble about that. To live a life of selflessness is to live a life of masochism.

As humans, we have a capacity to achieve very great things, and likewise to enjoy the journey. To honour this by striving to achieve something - and by doing fun things in life - is to respect your existence. This is true selfishness. This is how to live. That's being a humanpreneur.

To live a life of 'pure' selflessness, it would involve the pursuit of something that didn't make you feel good, or your soul soar. It would mean straying away from anything that made you feel good. To live a life like this would be to live a life of zero value OR to live a life evading any values you had aimed to achieve.

Selflessness is NOT a value. It is an ANTI-value, since by acting selfless, i.e., doing something that does nothing for your soul, you are paying your self no value. A value is something that is good for you and your soul. It is anything selfish.

Of course, you can life a life whereby you give value to everyone else except to yourself, but this is a life akin to prostitution. Are prostitutes selfless, then? No - they get paid for it, at least, don't they? Just an aside

Now, when you truly analyse it, is there anything you do right now in your life that actually doesn't make you feel good on some level? I don't mean helping someone out when you don't want to. This is still being selfish, as the person whom you are helping invariably holds some value for you. Helping someone whom you hated - now that would be selfless. But what about if you were helping someone you hated, but it was for a cause you approved of? Good point.

You'd have to be helping someone you truly hated, doing something toward a cause you truly despised of, for it to be truly selfless. But ask yourself: "What would make you want to fill even a second of your life with this?" Insanity, I'd imagine. Show me a selfless person, and I'll show you a nutcase - to paraphrase Sinatra. Kind of.

Remember, being selfish is doing something that ultimately makes you feel good. Doing something selfless is doing something that ultimately doesn't make you feel good at all. Who knows how long you've got. Make it count, fill your soul with passion. Be selfish! Don't listen to what the nil by minds tell you. You CAN help someone out AND feel good about it. That's being selfish, too, and that's good! You do it because of the joy it gives you.

Be selfish. It's the only way to live.

To freedom,

Scotty Stevens