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To begin with, selfishness is not a character trait, but a person's value orientation towards themselves. The complete opposite of selfishness is altruism, that is, a value orientation towards the interests of other people.
Extreme selfishness is not only the satisfaction of one's own needs and interests, but also the demand from other people to fulfill personal requests, without taking into account their needs and interests.
Extreme altruism is the dissolution of a person in satisfying other people's needs and interests to the detriment of himself. Such people meddle in other people's lives with their own help and are often intrusive, as they seek to help even when their participation is not required.
Both are not the norm, as they make it difficult to interact in society. The golden mean is good when a person flexibly uses both personal orientations. Such a person may be capable of noble deeds due to the fact that he has clearly formulated moral values.
Selfishness is the main “feature” of any purposeful action. Nobility is an attempt to sacralize it, to admire the fruits of their actions for others, without noticing the benefits for themselves. So selfishness becomes altruism)
Healthy and reasonable selfishness is fine. A wise person understands perfectly well that when he does good to other people or the world, he does it better for himself. This is no worse than just doing good to yourself. Because the soul in all these cases gets a positive experience and gets closer to God. And this is the meaning of life.
Egoism is like all other isms… Innate!!! The only question is how and with what diligence you, you will cultivate this or that. You must agree that mercy, understanding, courage, tenderness, etc. are also innate, in addition to ego, and other things. Good companion, over a glass of tea… Or the company of evil beasts, and dashing friends??? Your choice my dears!!!
In fact, these concepts are incompatible.
Although in practice, of course, everything is much more complicated and a noble person can struggle with his selfishness all his life, hate it, despise it and so not get rid of it completely.
But what makes a noble person is not selfishness, but the ability to see the shortcomings of other people in yourself.