Before I came up with the Peace and Prosperity-Equation, even maybe before or during ”the mirror-project” and the “advice on spirituality-project”, I thought of the concept of positive-egoism. The first person I’ve told about this was one of the (girl) room mates I had, that I’ve hung out with the most. Her reaction was immediately be careful with that, because it could come bite you in the ass. At that time, for many reasons I could understand why she would have said that, but the most important reason was that I’ve understood what I’ve meant with the concept of positive-egoism, but at that time I couldn’t explain it like I saw it.
Only of course, this realization came when the act already happened, because if I’ve recognized why she wasn’t understanding me, because her arguments weren’t logical and only based out of (general) fear, so she wasn’t convincing me and I couldn’t convince her. One of the mistake in my arguments that I’ve made then was that I’ve only compared positive-egoism with negative-egoism, thus leaving plain egoism and no egoism aside.
To start with the most simple concept “Ego(ism)”, in essence only insane, as in mentally unstable people/living beings and/or rabies infected people/living beings can be said of not having an ego and/or loose/get out of touch with their ego. So only they can call themselves pure no egotistical creatures. Every other living creature on Earth has an Ego, which it can consciously or subconsciously control. To give here an example, we humans are living creatures with conscious control of our Egos. The mere fact you can read these words, and especially if you can understand them, with/without help of translations, makes you a conscious being in control of its Ego. Other conscious beings in control of their egos that we know of are for example, dolphins/whales, elephants and (great) apes. Animals like dogs, cats, pigs, monkeys, parrots, etc.. have an ego that can be classified as being between conscious and subconscious, but cannot be called full conscious beings, as they are also driven by wild instincts and hormones that can take control of their behavior.
That hormones and wild instincts can also take control of dolphins/whales, elephants and (great) apes is also true, as is the case with human beings, albeit, we humans through inbreeding through these centuries have collectively come more to grips, through ego-realization or medication, with their hormonal and instinctive (wild) reactions. Which, especially with the latter, is something that is not necessarily best if we lose total control off. Learning to trust meteorologists instead of your own wild instincts about the weather cannot be something that can collectively cause harm, but loosing ones instinct of knowing if something is good to eat and trusting only supermarkets can cause collective harm in societies. Of course, there are people in the World that are not insane and that you can call not egotistical, but most of the time, you can also call those people naive or ignorant. So, even though no egotistical people can be (very) good people, their lesser self reliant and/or interdependent nature creates a vulnerability in the collective society if most people become non egotistical.
A positive-egotistical person, as I consider myself to be, is someone that accepted its ego and lives its life for the betterment of everyone, including themselves. This last part is important, because it’s not for the betterment of themselves and others, because in that case one creates a separation between themselves and other people. All the while, the betterment of the World means the betterment of everyone. Wanting to be the only one that does well in life, is a selfish, egotistical, unrealistic and definitely self harming way of thinking. Just as, willing to hurt others for the betterment of self, something a negative-egotistical will always chose and a plain egotistical person might choose, also is. Helping others and hurting (or hindering) yourself in the short term is for the longevity of your life better than helping yourself and hurting others short term. This counts for business, work, family, friends and life in general. Helping others and yourself, or helping yourself and not hurting others, or helping others and not hurting yourself are of course all better options than the aforementioned scenarios, but the essence of positive-egoism is that in life you are living, playing, wandering, which way you see yourself in this present life doing, with other people and your actions are never without consequences for another person. Never.
A plain egotistical person is someone I call that is a being with a conscious controlled ego, but that mostly lets their daily management be controlled by their subconscious and/or automatic pilot, governed by their innate desires, wants, needs. Now the difference between plain egoism and no egoism can be better explained, because with no egoism someone is more out of control of their ego. In spirituality, even to attain ego death, ego depletion or letting go of ones ego, starts with the identification of the ego. Listen to gurus and even the teaching of Buddhist/Buddha, even they couldn’t escape this inevitable universal truth. So, someone with no egoism is more like ego-less beings with subconscious control than plain egotistical beings.
Now, you can thus say that the difference between a negative-egotistical, plain egotistical and positive-egotistical person is both consciousnesses and motive/intention in their negative and positive behavior/acts. Negative-egotistical and plain egotistical people are less collective behavioral driven than positive-egotistical people, because their motive/intention for their behavior are driven by self interests, self pleasure and self propagation, in the broadest meaning of the word, without prioritizing or taking into account the effect on the collective and even prioritizing self betterment above harming others.
The reason I’m bullish about our collective future is because I believe that we are now getting to the point in time where there’s inherently more positive-egotistical people living on Earth than negative-egotistical, plain egotistical and no egotistical people, combined. Many people say and/or believe that a person can not change who he/she/they are, so one would then also believe that a negative-egotistical person can never become an inherently positive-egotistical person. Believing in that is not believing in the collective and not believing in the power of good. There is more to be had for everyone with doing good, than doing bad. Because doing bad can only create short term gains for the bad actors, but results in negative outcome for most and maybe all, including self in the long term. Doing good can never result in short and definitely not long term negative consequence for anyone. Even negative outcomes stemming from good intentions result in long term gains for everyone, even the ones being hurt short term.
This is not a matter of hope, believe or faith. This is a universal truth that has been explained and passed down as wisdom for ages, only not by these precise words/terminologies. If by giving this behavioral choice a name, I can help one other person find a tool to make better decisions in their lives that helps contribute to a better global society, then this positive-egotistical behavior of mine was all worth it.
