No, gratitude should be expressed when you're grateful for something. So if someone holds the door when you didn't ask, and you're grateful, you thank them. If someone comes to your place, makes a bunch of noise after being asked or told not to and won't let you just chill and decompress that's not a scenario that calls for gratitude.
If I come home from work and my nighbor is in my yard with a backhoe digging me a swimming pool, well that's very generous of him, but I don't want a pool and now my property is destroyed. I don't owe that guy my thanks for his generousity... also does anyone know the best way to refill a swiming pool hole?
I think a selfless act can be selfish, I often do stuff that no one else knows I've done and deliberately don't tell anyone else about because it makes me feel good knowing I've done a selfless act which in turn makes it a selfish thing to do because I'm the only one that benefits from knowing I did it or something
I think that's the part that makes the acts not completely selfless. They're still great, the effects are not tainted in any measurable way, but there's a degree of selfishness to it.
In the instance of the little boy he couldn't not do what he did. It's in this little badass motherfucker to put his sister first. Plain and simple. But he would have been destroyed mentally and emotionally had he not done what he did. Sense of self-preservation kicked in...ok that's a stretch. That could be one of the few acts that don't fit the mold of the theory.
I tend to think there are no selfless acts.
Yeah that's why I added egoism to the OP. I'm not 100% convinced that there are no selfless acts, but id say most are done for some selfish reason.
True, but good people get enjoyment out of making others happy, so while not selfless, it's close.
Integrity. Wisdom. Honor. Nobility. Decency. Ethics. There are a host of words. We can't really get caught up in nomenclature here, or what once was. The huge mistake in judging a thing, beside the judging itself, is how it locks perspective inside the past and makes us forget how we each birth new moments.What would you call it when someone doesn't get enjoyment out of helping others, but does it because he thinks its the right thing to do?
Not true, I let @lsa post here even though he causes all sorts of trouble and annoys me to no end.