I just did an internet search on “self help.”

I did this search because so often I hear people talking about being selfish. I don’t know what it is like in other parts of the world, but at least in the US we are raised to be on the lookout for our own selfish behavior, and try to wipe it out.

I wondered about the contradiction between this thought about selfishness, and our ferocious (at least in the West) emphasis on self help.

The results of my search were interesting:

Selfish—62,100,000

Self help—899,000,000

Self care—721,000,000

It looks as if we are caught between poles:
It is bad to be so focussed on my self, I should be giving to others.
I need to be a better person than I am, so I should focus on my own improvement.

Doesn’t it come down to the same thing in the end? Whether we are reading a self help book or helping others, we are trying so earnestly to be a better person. But I think our effort is skewed: we too quickly look for what is wrong with us, instead of what is right.