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Nobody can be selfless There is no such thing as selflessness. It is not possible to live selflessly. Say you earned 1,000 rupees today. On your way home, you see a beggar and decide to give him that money. You tell yourself, “I did a selfless act today because I fed that beggar and went hungry myself.” Now, whether or not you tell anyone about it, even if you keep it to yourself, you still believe you acted selflessly. But no—you didn’t. You performed a selfish act. How? Because even though you went hungry, you gained psychological pleasure from it. You felt good about yourself, and you did it for that feeling. That’s selfishness. And this is not a criticism. There’s nothing wrong with being selfish. If you’re alive and human, there’s no other way to live but selfishly, with self-interest. The closest you can get to so-called “selflessness” or greatness is by aligning your self-interest with the interest of others—so that when you act, your action makes you happy and also benefits the other person. That’s good selfishness. The bad kind is when you live only for your own interest at the expense of others. So nobody in the world is selfless. In fact, those who believe they are the most selfless are often the biggest narcissists.