"Survive" is the basic message. Selfishness is sternly coded on genetic material, which most of nature passes on. For the majority, sympathy is a sentimental illusion. Newborns and young children have little on their minds except their own tightly centered comfort.But then something happens. We wince at someone else's hurt. We cry at movies. We develop empathy. Scientists are at work trying to find out from which part of our brain this empathy emanates, as well as what influences shape or inhibit it.
It has been shown that a degree of selflessness is tightly tied to kin, the implication being that the preservation of the gene pool is paramount to its development. You would sacrifice for a blood relative more readily than for a stranger. Even wartime heroism is identified as sacrifice for those similar to one's self.
Empathy, which may not be common in nature, can be developed in us. To aim for 100 with nobility, you need to identify and search out causes that you feel are important. You need to join an environmental organization, participate in local government, or engage in educational activities. You need to spend more time with people you care about and who care about you. En route, do not assume that the bottom line of your effort is measured in dollars and cents. An exclusively economic life approach is ill fated. The true bottom line of life lies in its contribution.
To develop altruism, a sense of time perspective is important. As you view the world at a given instant, personal survival is the highest value. But as you begin to view the world as interrelated and reflective of a time dimension, the connectedness to others begins to make sense.
The older you become, the more your empathy has a chance to express itself. The older you become, the less important you as a person are in the total scheme of things. You realize that your importance is only seen in context with others. Time allows you, compels you, to love not just yourself but the others in your world. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, "Someday we shall harness the energies of love, and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
Bottom line:
In helping something or someone else to survive, the person who is most likely to benefit is you.
