We Sometimes Identify Selfishness as Righteousness

There are times in life when people need to take responsibility, and there are times when we just need to deliberately avoid it for a while and take a breather. We cannot carry certain burdens that we could have avoided out of some humble sense of responsibility when we are still at a low point. In this way, we will not gain anything except moving ourselves. When we are in the doldrums, we should always save ourselves out of our misery first, and then help others when we have adequate capacity. If you are drowning, how can you still throw the life jacket to others? 

Self-pity is irrational and is essentially a very selfish thought. Further self-pity drives us into extreme selfishness. Meanwhile, it gives us the illusion that we are righteous. 

I am not always true.

I am not the center of the world.

It is the most lethal form of self-anesthesia and is very addictive. Charlie Munger once said, “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought; self-pity gets pretty close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse; you do not want to drift into self-pity.” People who dwell on self-pity often sigh at the sadness of their own situation, the injustice of fate, and the heartlessness of others, but do nothing about it in action. Sometimes self-pity is also a type of abandonment because they think that they are inferior to others. We should not dwell on the illusion that we are righteous by self-soothing, excusing self-sin, shifting responsibility, and stopping efforts. We must accept that life is sometimes out of control, out of balance, and out of order, and not to mention our own imperfections.

Self-pity does not help. It is selfish, lethal, and not righteous.