velvetears
Posts: 2933
Joined: 6/19/2006 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Darcyandthedark I would hope to keep the discussion polite if possible - and you are right, I do not believe in selfless acts. Selfless acts would be acts are a beautiful concept but in my world they do not exist....... i think i have been polite, do you think i haven't because i have disagreed with you? At any rate let me pose to you a little story - a woman is on her way to work, a mundane day of traveling and the usual traffic except this day it is slower then usual with cars going at a crawls pace. Worried about being late the woman keeps looking at the time and wondering what has happened up ahead. Finally cars start to dribble by one at a time and as she nears the front line to be let by she notices a big car and an old woman walking back and forth around her car, realizing their was an accident she realizes what was holding up the traffic all this time. A few cars dribble past and as this woman waited her turn she noticed odd behavior coming from the old woman, she watched her carefully wondering what she was doing when all of a sudden it was apparent this old lady was going to climb over a guard rail. Realizing this, this woman slammed her vehicle into park, ran over to the guard rail which the old lady was half across, went over it herself, ended up in the left lane of the opposite side traffic grabbing this old lady so she would not be hit by a car in her dazed condition from the accident. Horns blasted as she could feel the air from passing cars nearly graze her back. By that time, others were there to help these two woman back over the guard rail. She told the others that the old lady was in shock from some head trauma, obvious because her head was gushing some blood and that they should get her to the other side where there was grass, lay her down with her feet elevated and put a blanket on her till an ambulance came. This woman went back to her car and continued on to work, albeit a bit shaken from the ordeal, but still worried she would be late. What would you call this? It wasn't planned, there was no forthought, just immediate reaction to a danger that was present and an action to save a life. In case your wondering this isn't a made up story, it happened to me on the way to work one day. When i got home from work that day, i cried my eyes out realizing i could have been killed and my children would have lost their mother. Maybe that makes me selfish - maybe you will say the selfless thing to do would be to witness another human being being run down by parkway traffic because to risk my life to save an old lady, being that i had children, was selfish - but guess what, that thought process never had a chance to even enter my mind, there wasn't time. i had to act and act fast or this woman would have been road kill. i do understand what you are sayin though about selfishness not necessarily being a bad thing, and i agree with you - it's necessary to be selfish sometimes in life, people cannot be selfless 100% of the time. i see nothing wrong with trying to be selfless in a relationship though - if both partners worked on that ideal the relationship would be one of nurturance and security, and just a beautiful way to express each others love. Will they reach 100% total selflessness all the time - no, but it's a hell of an ideal to strive for in my book :-)
< Message edited by velvetears -- 9/2/2007 4:48:46 AM >
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Religion is for people who are scared of hell, Spirituality is for people who have been there
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