Our culture is saturated with self-promoting mantras:

We patriotically embrace “the pursuit of happiness” and prioritize individual needs and accomplishments over collective ones. We are a proud nation of self-made, self-sufficient men and women. Along with this admirable self-sufficiency, however, comes potential for selfishness. This selfishness can take the form of failure to listen, failure to emphasize, failure to share, or failure to help.

 

Selfishness makes partnership impossible to foster.

When one person consistently does what they want, it is difficult for the relationship to survive. A focus on self keeps mutual respect from developing and can lead to a victim mentality. The result can be controlling behavior or an entitlement attitude.

 

The opposite of selfishness is servanthood. Friends look to serve each other. Serving helps to keep each humble, shows how they need each other and invests in the relationship resulting in mutual support.

 

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.Philippians 2: 3-4