For software authors, it’s software piracy. For articles authors, it’s this thing that happened to you.

Yep my post was just about the first sentence, that was what Gregg was reacting aswell. Otherwise I agree(and try to live) with you on the path of activity vs. passivity and fear, I wouldn’t read your blog If I wouldnt;)

I think the balance of STS and STO simply depends on what stage your own growth is at.

If you’re at an early stage of growth, you barely have enough resources to cover your own needs and growth. In that case, you ought to be strongly STS.

If you’ve gathered enough resources (resources meaning money, knowledge, wisdom, etc) to cover your own needs and growth, then you’re able to start a more STO focus. Resource-wise, I’m fairly low on the scale. I shouldn’t feel selfish about not giving, when I really don’t have a lot of excess resource to give.

There’s a perception that STO work is more valuable and more honorable - I’ve just realised I have this bias too. A lot of the self improvement literature puts a higher value on STO work, so the lesson’s been well drilled into me. This article has made me re-examine that belief.

My conclusion - STS work is not the same as being selfish.

Let’s define ’selfishness’ as meaning “having an abundance of resource, and not sharing it around”. If you’re working to fulfil your needs and growth, you’re not being selfish. You’re doing what you need to do, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it. If you’re a single parent flipping burgers for a living, don’t let anybody on a high horse call you selfish. You’re not.

I need money to buy a place to live and support my growth. So, I do my job and run some investments to make money. It consumes most of my time, so I don’t spend much time on STO. Should I feel guilty about it?

The real value of this article has been making me look at my own beliefs about selfishness and service. I had some semi-conscious guilt about my STS activities, but now I realise I shouldn’t be guilty about fulfilling my needs and growth.

The title of this article is provocative (hey, it got me reading!) but somewhat misleading I think - I must admit I read the article a little defensively, and it seems to have rubbed some other readers up the wrong way too. I don’t think it’s Steve’s intention to call us selfish. Rather, he wants us to examine our own balance of STO, STS, and selfish activities, and let us do the name calling ourselves.

You may realise you’re a selfish person. You may realise you have STS and STO in balance. In my case, I’ve realised I’m very STS, but that’s simply what’s right for me at this stage of life.

I did not mean to imply that I think my path is the right one for others, only that I think it’s the right one for me. I can see many valuable ways of making a meaningful contribution via the gaming and shareware industries, but I did not feel that was the best for me personally. It was part of my path for over 10 years, but I wanted something different for the next 10 years. I don’t regret starting my software company at all.

I can’t say I play games much now. I doubt I’ll play any this month (I haven’t thus far). If I did play something, it would most likely be one of the games I’ve published and just for maybe 15 minutes during a break.

I have been increasingly concerned with my own attempts at starting a shareware business. I got to this site from Dexterity, and have found all your points, especially this one, as very impactful.

But I am concerned. You sort of imply that the only valid purpose in life is the one that you chose. I don’t (at least not at the moment) want to lecture people about personal growth. I want to do something I feel is meaningful and altrustic with my life, I can think of a lot of ways I could use games to help benefit people outside of entertainment. However, your own movement from the shareware industry seems to imply that you don’t feel that path has nearly as much merit? I really want to contribute as much as I can to society (STO) but my selfish desires want to make computer/video games.

Do you still play games yourself?

When a person starts to get beyond greed and realizes that people are more important than things, they start to realize their potential. Money and power is not what life is all about, although American Culture constantly sells us that elixir.

We need to give because it is the right thing to do, not give in order to take. I was very disappointed in your conclusion. Don’t allow greed to fuel anything, work on reducing it - that’s humanity.

It turns out that one place where this story starts to take shape is easy to put our fingers on. When you are considering some action, you consider it “under a description,” which just means that you describe it in one way or another. The key point to notice is that one action can be described in more than one way (some ways will seem more STO, some will seem more STS). Long story short, it is vital to slow down and be conscious at that stage of giving a description to your action, and to and keep yourself honest at that moment, because if you allow yourself to slip on the description, slipping on the action won’t be far behind.

Why? Because communism only works if everybody is selfless and works hard for the sake of society. So communism starts from the idea that man does STO.

Capitalism, on the other hand, was successful because it starts from the idea that man does what it’s in his best interest. So capitalism starts from the idea that man does STS.

Capitalism succeeded, communism failed. Why? Because in fact the human nature implies that we do STS (service to self).

I find that a strong belief in STS is liberating for me personally.

I also find that most people around me who openly and strongly belive in STS are happier, less frustrated, less stressed, more interesting people, while people who belive in STO are usually fustrated, stressed and unhappy.

I think that psychology (not pop-psychology but scientific psychology based on studies and statistics) can confirm this. Doing and beliving in STS is considered a healthy trait.

In spite of the fact that I strongly appreciate and practice STS, I take great care not to harm others, because I also belive in that.

@Alborz: The pleasure-pain model isn’t mine; I was simply stating it as one of many paradigms. I happen to agree with you. I’m sorry if the context wasn’t clear.

Personally I don’t believe it is in our core to simply put ourselves first or do things based on a ‘response system’ that would bring us pain or pleasure, we are not simply complicated robots that are merely responding to our environments. We couldn’t be! (I could never accept that as the truth).

We are more then that! Everyday goes by and we have hundreds of stories of selfless heroes who go out of their way to put their lives in danger to help others, you can’t possible believe that is due to their need for self fulfillment? By your ideology we would never put our selves into harms way unnecessarily, especially for a stranger dying on the side of the road, but we do.

The term humanity is a strong one, call me an idealist, but if we try to view ourselves in this black and white manner then what hope is left for humanity to move forward from its current state of misery and self destruction.