There’s a poignant moment from my childhood that still resonates with me.
It comes from the early 1990s. I was 5 years old at the time.
My family had returned from our first extended vacation — several weeks camping up and down the coast of Maine. My aunt and uncle were over at our home to hear the stories of our travels and look at the pictures we took.
(Yes, it’s hard to imagine now. But in a time before smartphones and social media, these types of social engagements were commonplace.)
It was a beautiful late summer day, so we soon found ourselves in the backyard. We had a new wooden playset that had been installed earlier that year, and I hopped on the single swing anchored to one end of it.
For the next several minutes I laughed exuberantly as the swing went forward and backward. I felt the breeze as I went back and forth, our home getting closer and then drifting further away.
Soon enough, my sister — who was 2 at the time — asked if she could ride on the swing. I said no; I was having too much fun to give it up.
“Now, Dylan,” my uncle said. “Don’t be selfish. How about you give your sister a turn after 10 more turns of the swing?”
I agreed, and he gave the swing a push. Suddenly, I was flying back and forth, the swing taking a much wider track on its pendulum motion. I could feel the wind under my knees, and my jubilation was reinvigorated.
Now, there was no way I was getting off the swing.
Sure enough, after the 10 back and forth turns of the swing were up, my sister asked to ride the swing again.
Actually, it might have been after 15 turns — she had not yet mastered the art of counting.
But either way, when she asked, I once again refused to give her a turn.
My uncle was disgusted. He walked away from the swing set, exclaiming “That was mean, Dylan. You’re being selfish.”
And being the 5 year old brat I was, I responded by repeating the word selfish over and over. It’s as if I treated the term as a badge of honor.
After a few moments, I noticed that my aunt, my parents and my sister had left the playset area too. I was being abandoned for my bad behavior.
I hopped off the swing and went to join them, acting as if nothing had happened. Yet, my uncle continued to admonish me for being stubborn and selfish. He insisted I apologize to my sister for not sharing the swing set.
After a few moments, I did apologize. And that was the end of the incident.
The rift was closed, and we moved on with the afternoon.
Why, then, am I writing about this story more than a quarter century later?
Because that one moment forever changed my approach to life.
Selflessness is one of my most prominent qualities these days.
I make this claim not from a place of aspiration or ego. I base it instead off what others have said about me.
And while I’m not preoccupied with what others think of me, I will admit it’s humbling to see one of my core values being recognized.
In my career, my business school studies and my volunteer work, I’ve striven to put others first whenever possible. I might not be shipping off to remote villages in Africa to fix world hunger, but I also don’t spend every waking second looking out for #1.
My philosophy is simple: Help others succeed, and we all benefit.
As I’ve pointed out on Words of the West before, I don’t view the world as Zero Sum. The joy and success of those I care about reinvigorates me and brings me happiness in turn. Putting myself second to help them attain these results benefits everyone.
I did not always think this way. The swing set story makes that fact self-evident.
Yet, I can point to that incident as my spark for this movement. It was the moment I learned the true power and importance of selflessness.
Growing up, I idolized my uncle. I still do today.
My uncle is a renowned surgeon and researcher. His work has helped save the lives of many cancer-stricken patients. His commitment to training and teaching will help a new generation of surgeons and researchers save countless more lives.
These are accomplishments I will forever admire him for.
But back when I young, I admired my uncle for other reasons. He was in medical school back then, and he and my aunt didn’t have any kids of their own at the time. So, whenever we’d visit them — or they visited us — my uncle would spend a lot of time with me. It was an attention-seeking kid’s dream.
My uncle was even-keeled. He was cool and collected, not exuberant. Even so, he was fun to be around.
The last thing I wanted to do was let him down.
Yet, that summer afternoon on the swing set, that’s exactly what I did.
That was one of only two times I remember my uncle being visibly disappointed in me. (The other was when I stepped on a sharp shell at the beach as a teenager and blurted out a certain four-letter word.)
It stung.
I remember asking my parents what selfish meant that evening. And why that word upset my uncle so much.
It was then that my parents taught me about the importance of sharing. To be sure, they had told me about this several times before. But this was the first time it really sank in.
And from that day forth, I started to change.
I didn’t suddenly turn into a beacon of selflessness — I only was 5 years old, after all. But any time I did something self-serving and got called out for it, I would hear a voice in my mind. It was my uncle, saying “You’re being selfish.”
Step by step, year by year, I progressed toward my present-day mantra. I gradually came to see the value of helping others succeed, and I came to espouse it.
The funny thing? Even after transforming my outlook and reorienting my life, my uncle’s words from all those years ago still guide me.
Because truth be told, I still slip up a lot. There are plenty of times I find myself on the precipice of wholly self-serving decisions.
Whether the result of fatigue, multitasking or a lapse in judgement, I often find myself preparing to take an action that benefits me disproportionately at the expense of others.
Yet, when I’m on the brink of making a selfish mistake, my uncle’s words are there to save me.
You’re being selfish. Don’t be selfish.
They force me to pause and reevaluate. They encourage me to make a better decision. And for that I am thankful.
Yes, my uncle is a great man. He’s saved many lives, and the work he’s done will save many more. And in the smallest of ways, his timely words have helped to save mine.
I believe we can all benefit be being more selfless. I believe there’s an inherent advantage to putting others first and helping our communities thrive.
It’s less glamourous than pampering ourselves and basking in self-adulation. It flies in the face of the me-first zeitgeist sweeping across mass media and social media.
Yet, it builds stronger bonds with the people around us. It provides us the catharsis of making a tangible, positive difference. And most of all, it’s just the natural thing for us to do.
We’re meant to work for a cause bigger than ourselves. To build connections with the world around us and work toward a common goal.
Like the buffalo on the Plains from days gone by, there is strength in numbers. But this collective strength is only realized we take our ego out of the question and strive for a goal bigger than ourselves.
We might not be there yet. We might be the kid who refuses to give up the swing, as I once was.
But we can change. We can work at it, day by day. We can transform ourselves to meet an ideal truly worth our aspirations.
Let’s get to it.