Phil 100

After listening to your feedback on the paper that I turned in, as nice as you were at choosing your words regarding what my paper reflected. I had to sit with myself and really think about where those ideas and thoughts had come from that I wrote down cause when I listened to what you were saying, all I could think about was “that doesn’t sound like me”! It had to be though because no one else wrote that paper for me. After a lot of thought I went back quite a few years to a time when I was an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous because my drinking and behavior got out of hand and I needed help. It got me through a period of time, but I have still managed to stay sober three years after leaving AA, and I was told that was an impossible thing for a person to do. They tried to convince me that the ONLY way that I had a chance at recovery was to stay with the program. The problem with that is there were a lot of things about the program that I didn’t care for. I cringe at organized religion the same as I now do AA for the simple fact that it has to be all or nothing! You have to believe everything they tell you and do everything they tell you exactly how they tell you to or you’ll relapse and get drunk. I had the same experience as a child when I was forced to go to Catholic Church. The only difference is I was going to hell. Hell here, hell after here. How depressing when you are just a person with some problems reaching out for help? That was supposed to help me. What I am trying to say is this: In those meetings and in the big book they drill it into your head like brainwashing that selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of your problems. That everything is all about you and you are nothing more than a selfish pig that doesn’t do anything for anyone else unless there is something in it for you. There are many other things that drove me out of there but this one is what I’ll stick with cause it stays on the subject of my paper. I didn’t realize how much of that crappy thinking that I ran from so long ago was still festering around in my head. Honesty, that’s not the way that I feel at all. I think people will generally offer out there hand to someone in need just because they have the means and ability to. They don’t get anything out of it in return. Maybe it makes them feel good inside for helping somebody but I don’t see anything self centered at all about that.
The example that was used about Ellen who spends Saturday morning with her relative’s because it makes her mom happy, but it makes Ellen miserable. That is not a unique situation whatsoever! There are millions of people that make that same choice on a weekly basis, and most of them probably make the choice of biting the bullet, and spending the time with the family and of course, making mom happy. After all, doesn’t she deserve that? How many selfless sacrifices did my mom make for me through the years? I don’t think that there was anything selfish about!
On that thought before I go a second further, I am going to have to change my position 110%. Just the thought that believing psychological egoism is true would have to mean that my mother giving birth to me was as self centered act that she only did for her own best interest. To me, that is ludicrous! Even a struggling mother, with not the best parenting skills does the best that she can with all the love in her heart to do everything for that child. Most importantly, motherhood is the most thankless, unappreciated, job in the world that I could think of. In fact, if I were in Ellen’s shoes, the person who I know myself to be would get more out of biting the bullet and spending the time with my family and making my mother happy rather than hurting her and taking off with my friends or whatever.