In Rational Emotive Therapy (REBT), we suggest that you cultivate the capacity to put yourself first and others a close second. Then we encourage you to live and implement this stance in your relationships with others. In REBT, we refer to this as enlightened self-interest. Some people may be reluctant to embrace this position. The purpose of this piece is to help you see the advantages of doing this, the assumptions it is based on, and how to overcome the guilt you may feel if you adopt this position as your own.
The thing that is important to keep in mind is that this position is different than putting yourself first and others a distant second. When we put others a distant second, we are displaying selfishness. From the REBT perspective, putting yourself first and others a distant second is self-defeating and will undermine your happiness and survival in the long run. We live in social groups, and our well-being is interconnected with the well-being of our fellow humans. If we have too little or zero concern for the well-being and flourishing of those around us, this will sooner or later undermine our goals and happiness. Other people will be less inclined to assist us when we could profit from their assistance. They will see us as selfish, which would be accurate, and then not feel motivated to help or be willing to have a healthy relationship with us as friends, family members, neighbors, or colleagues.
REBT philosophy argues there are many good reasons to put yourself first and others a close second. Who will do so if you fail to put yourself first and take responsibility for your well-being? Reflect upon these questions:
- Who is in the best position to know and understand what I want and would like to try to achieve in my life?
- If I put others first, can I safely assume others will put me first in their dealings with me, given that they are fallible human beings?
- Will I set myself up to be taken advantage of by other imperfect humans who might be selfish, lazy, unaware, emotionally disturbed, or incompetent?
- If things do not go as I want them to go, will I feel worse if I have outsourced the responsibility for my life?
When you put yourself first, you can do so guiltlessly, but life is complex. Therefore you may sometimes elect to put others first when you consider the context, your relationship history with the other person, and other factors. There are several reasons you may choose to put others first under some conditions. You may gain something in the future by placing someone first, and so assisting someone may be in your long-term best interest. Furthermore, helping someone may boost your mood and give your life meaning in the short run. In this case, aiding someone in need positively impacts your well-being. In a sense, you are looking after your interest and theirs. Consider a parent who strikes a healthy balance between putting their child’s well-being slightly ahead of their own. Here they are fulfilling the responsibility they brought upon themselves. In so doing, they accomplish their goal of seeing their child flourish. There is a long-term reward in the healthy near-term sacrifices made by the parent. In a sense, their sacrifice in the near term goes along with putting themselves first in the long run. In other circumstances, you may conclude that putting another person or persons first will result in you losing little and others gaining a great deal. Consider when a person with great wealth donates large sums of money to a charity. The philanthropist loses little wealth in a relative sense but gains emotionally from their financial contribution.
REBT distinguishes between healthy and unhealthy negative emotions. Unhealthy negative emotions undermine our long-term well-being and do not work well in the real world, where we might experience situations where our personal goals conflict with one another. Unhealthy negative emotions result from rigid and extreme attitudes towards oneself, others, and life. Said another way, these self-defeating negative attitudes and emotions do not serve us well as we strive to achieve our long-term goals to survive, live happily, and relate intimately with a few chosen others. One specific negative emotion that undermines enlightened self-interest is guilt. Guilt is an unhealthy negative emotion, from the REBT perspective, that will prevent an individual from having the capacity to display enlightened self-interest.
Guilt involves judging one’s behavior as violating a moral or ethical code of conduct or failing to do good or helpful acts. These evaluations of what immoral act we have done or a good action we failed to do are only part of what it takes to manufacture this unhealthy negative emotion. Guilt requires us to judge our misbehavior as evidence that our personhood, essence, or self is lesser or bad. Our essence is corrupt. In other words, to feel guilty, one needs to not only “misbehave” but then think rigidly and make an extreme evaluation about themselves having committed their misbehavior. They need to condemn themselves for their bad deed. They conclude they have done something they “absolutely must not do,” and then, because of this, they define themselves in terms of what they have done or failed to do. They are no longer a fallible human. They are a bad person.
Let us consider an adult who believes they absolutely must live their life according to a parent’s value system. This person will be unable to live without guilt if they think they must conform to their parent’s value system and are therefore a bad person for not living as their parent wishes them to live. This child will not be able to put themselves first and their parents a close second.
If the child did not have an absolute stance towards maintaining their parent’s approval, they would probably be capable of seeing their right to choose their own goals and values despite their parent’s sacrifices. They may feel sad that they cannot be true to themselves and their parent’s values. They may feel concerned about how much their parents will needlessly disturb themselves as they implement a philosophy of enlightened self-interest. However, the child will not “absolutely need” to live as their parents wish and be capable of doing what they want and not live as their parent expects them to live. The child will not judge themselves as a bad person for losing their parent’s approval. The child may wish both of them could be pleased with the course of action but be capable of going against what their parent wishes in the service of living the life they want to live.
When a person believes they have broken a moral code, they can elect to feel healthy remorse for their decisions and actions. Their feeling of remorse will result from their acknowledgment that they broke a moral code or failed to do something good or helpful but without any devaluation of themselves as a person. To do this, the individual cannot hold an absolute attitude towards themselves and their behavior. Moreover, the individual does not define their total self as lesser or bad due to instances or even multiple instances of “bad” behavior. It is healthy for this individual to recognize that such behavior will harm or damage meaningful relationships. Reader, please note that this individual should preferably be concerned about their unethical or immoral behavior because they remain responsible for the consequences. It is healthy for this person to remember that they live in a society with laws, rules, and ethics.
When we practice enlightened self-interest as suggested by REBT philosophy, we are not encouraging you in any way not to care for others and how they will feel in response to your behavior and choices. Take their reaction into account in your decision making but do not make yourself a prisoner of other people’s wishes for how you live your life. The message of REBT is that you have a right to choose your way without guilt. Taking care of oneself is where moral reasoning begins. We in REBT believe in self-responsibility for our emotional disturbance and self-responsibility for our lives. REBT argues that when people embrace REBT’s Principle of Emotional Responsibility, life in social groups improves for everyone. Going beyond being responsible for your emotional disturbance but being self-directed and accountable for your own life also has significant advantages for you and your social group. The philosophy of enlightened self-interest helps us get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want while showing due regard for the rights of others. This philosophy will not always be easy to implement. You will need to cultivate a strong sense of unconditional self-acceptance. However, in the final analysis, it is likely to be the best stance to take vis-à-vis others. Try it and see for yourself!