Self-interest vs Empathy – how to motivate people do the right thing?

There are people who function completely out of self-interest alone. You try and tell a self-interested mother, that their actions are hurting their child, and they’ll reply that the actions of their child are “selfish” because they are not 100% directed to taking care of the mother’s needs.

At the same time, you can lecture a teenaged hooligan that he is going to hurt himself one day, you can yell in his face that “One day, son, you’re going to kill yourself if you carry on like this” and receive nothing but a blank stare. But when you remind the same kid that “Listen, son, what if the day will come when you run over a child or an elderly person” and they’ll go white in the face as that realization kicks in, and they’ll change their habits… Hopefully before hurting anyone.

the Young Soul* and the Old Souls* see what is “selfish” differently.

The interpretation of what is “selfish” varies from the Young Soul* to the Old Souls*.

the Young Soul* -thinking: “Do you serve my needs? If not, you are being selfish.”

the Old Souls* -thinking: “Do you limit my ability to serve my own needs while you require me to serve yours? If so, you’re selfish.” This difference in thinking is in-born.

Even seemingly selfish behavior can be a result of simply not realizing that it is hurting someone else, whereas another person cannot comprehend why they should change their behavior simply because someone else might be suffering: “it’s not me, therefore, it’s not my concern!” It is good to know that while one person is only motivated by self-protection, another is motivated by protecting others, but not really with protecting themselves: “My body, my risk, my business.”

Motivate a change.

the Old Souls* can seem selfish sometimes, but if you remind them of how they hurt others, they’ll quickly change (sometimes to the point of being taken advantage of in return). A the Old Souls* will have to learn to establish their own boundaries and remind themselves of how their self-sacrifice makes the other person selfish in return.

When you cannot come up with a reason for a selfish person to change their behavior that is hurting other people, you have to make them consider their reputation: “You’ll be shunned if they find out!” Nothing scares the Young Soul* more than being EXCLUDED from their own community. For a Old Souls*, exclusion often sounds like a good outcome.

the Old Souls* fears hurting others over their own selfish needs. The Young Soul* fear hurting their own status in a community through their behavior. Effectively, the fear amounts to the same behavior from different motivations: I don’t want to hurt my own status by hurting others vs. I don’t want to hurt others, period. The Old Souls* must connect the dots for the Young Soul*: If you do this, others will not like you, and then they will exclude you from your current group. You must change or you won’t be liked for much longer. You’ll lose support. Popular people do not do this.

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