“Your Selfish Self…”
I was searching around the internet this morning for something else and quite by accident I saw a Rumi quote that really caught my attention and made me think.
“Once you conquer your selfish self, all your darkness will change to Light.”
Rumi…
‘Your selfish self?” I do my best not to be selfish. I don’t always achieve that goal, but when I first read this, I rolled my eyes a bit, thinking that on this one, Rumi might have missed the mark.
Who is he or anyone for that matter, to tell me that I’m living a selfish life? What about the “selfish pleasure” of giving to others? Still, this quote kept sticking with me. The more I considered it, the more sense it seemed to make.
It’s pretty complicated stuff isn’t it? I mean there’s a fine line to walk but on each side of the fine line we find many many questions. Walking that fine line between being selfishness vs unselfishness is something that ultimately only we can discover, assess and change. Then, add in doing things for ourselves vs others plus how to make that work in our busy lives and we’re ever so close to just calling a “time out” and endlessly scrolling on our phones eating HoHo’s! Sometimes in life we purposely forget about ourselves all together and completely focus outwards. It’s alright to do things for yourself. It’s alright to give things to yourself. And as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the greatest “selfish pleasure” is to give to others and see their joy and hope.
What I came up with is that Rumi was right if we can conquer our selfish self, we’ll be better and so will the world around us. Let’s take another look at that Rumi quote.
“Once you conquer your selfish self, all your darkness will change to Light.”
Rumi…
So, Rumi was right, or at least mostly right. For me, it doesn’t end where he left it. It’s not so much about selfishness vs unselfishness, it’s more about where our selflessness and focus is pointing and what’s the intentionbehind it is as we walk our path in life.
What about you? What do you think? I’d love to hear what your thoughts on this are. So whatever the format you might be listening to or reading this off of, drop me a message and let me know what you think about this or any of my thoughts that I might post. Whatever your path is, as Rumi said…
I hope your “darkness will change to light”
PEACE
…..Gregg