This assignment was successful at making me both analyze people I’m close to and reconsider societal norms surrounding what we perceive selfishness to entail. While I think it’s possible for seemingly selfish people to be happy in life, our society largely doesn’t value people that are considered selfish. I understand why, as these people are less likely to be good friends if they care mostly about themselves, but societal dislike for these people doesn’t change their perception of themselves and their happiness, theoretically. I found that it was hard to consider any single person I know to be selfish and in a similar vein I found it hard to consider them to be happy. My perception of these people’s happiness could be way off-base, although I would guess that the majority of people in general aren’t necessarily happy with their lives because of media’s constant presence and its influence in changing how we feel about ourselves.

This picture represents a simple image of what selflessness may mean to me. Another thing that was interesting about this assignment is that it asked whether or not my peers were selfish or unselfish-not if they were selfless. This pushed me to explicitly consider what it means to be selfish and if the people I know have any of these traits.