All humans are guilty of the sin of self-preservation — even the most benevolent ones among us. The instinct to always put ourselves first is an inherent human trait from birth. The suckling child constantly wants the mother's attention irrespective of her state of mind or health. Most loving spouse would save themselves if they had to chose between them and their partners. They'd rather "part" than have "to death do us part!"
What about our conversations? We dominate them with talks about our own needs and problems, leaving little or no opportunity for the other person to talk about himself. Listening is perhaps now the scarcest skill in the world because everybody wants to talk, and not just talk, they want to talk about themselves. Some men walk around with such big egos, they can't accommodate the opinions of others. It is to such ones Oscar Wilde was referring to when he said: "Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go".
We're more interested in the toothache we have than an earthquake that just killed over a hundred people in China. We're more concerned about own hunger, than millions of children dying of starvation in poor African countries. We are interested in our own affairs, more than all the problems in the world. That is humans for you!
We are starving for attention and would go to any length to get it. And since we think the world revolves around us, we expect others to agree and conform to our narrow views about issues. If not - then why on earth do we frequently engage in the fruitless exercise called argument? Is it not so that we can make others see how smart we are and how dumb they actually are? And why do we often buy things we don't really need — if not to impress people and make them see how great we are?
The average person speaks about 2,000 to 3,000 words every day. For the opposite sex — that figure is around 5,000 words daily! But our favourite words, for male and female alike, are "Me, Myself, and I". "You won't believe what happened to ME yesterday?" "Do you love ME? "Did they say anything about ME?" "I don't like her MYSELF" "I like being alone by MYSELF" 'I need your help? "I am feeling sad do you know why? " "I have an idea on how to make MYSELF rich and also make ME happy; would you like to hear about it?". And even when the person we're talking to don't reply, we still go ahead with our story.
Also, we seldom pay attention to others and rarely acknowledge their value as a person; yet we expect them to desire and crave our presence like the very air they breathe. And we wouldn't mind if they throw in a little eulogy while at it. In a way then, we're always trying to play God when we expect others to need us more than they should.
That doesn't mean we aren't capable of acts of kindness and selflessness once a while. The fact is that we often do. But an act of kindness today doesn't necessarily guarantee an act of kindness tomorrow. Only the gods has such prerogative! To the mortal man - greed is the norm and not the exception. He must exert twice as much effort to be kind than it would take him to be selfish because greed is more common to him than generosity.
However, this doesn't apply to the new creation man in Christ Jesus. The natural inclination of this man is love and kindness towards others, because the "love of God has been poured out in his heart by the Holy Spirit who was given to him" (Romans 5:5). That is the agape love — the God kind of love!
Nevertheless, since the ordinary man can't completely do away with this evil called greed — he must strive to overcome it daily. At least the devil understood this much about the human nature; hence the fall of Adam and Eve, Judas Iscariot, Ananias and Sapphira and so on. He once dared God and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and flesh, and he will curse you to your face!" (Job 2:4-5). In other words, threaten his means for self-preservation and watch him lose his integrity. I can't tell you how many times I've failed that test.
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