Looking Out for Oneself

It's human nature to look out for oneself.  It's about survival.  It's instinctual, and evolutionary. It's truly hard to get away from. As children, the world revolves around us. We need to be in charge. We need to have what we want to have. For some of us, that evolves in various ways.  Some people grow up to be followers, but in their minds, they're still looking out for themselves. They just fit neatly in the role of a follower.  Others are natural leaders and gravitate to the role of being a leader.  I never really considered myself to be a leader growing up. On the other hand, I was never going to be a follower.  Whether it was nature or nurture, I have always rebelled to any type of authoritarianism.  That includes parental authority. I've always gone my own way.  In that way, I guess I also naturally was always looking out for myself.  

Ironically, caring about others has also been who I am.  It's an interesting dichotomy, that caring about others reflects my need to look out for myself.  If I'm not caring about others, then I'm not happy.  As I grew up and got married and raised a family they became part of that orbit.  Getting a job, earning a living, taking care of them.  For me, however, there has still always been the drive beyond my family to make a difference and to impact the lives of others.  In that regard, becoming a doctor was a natural profession.  At an early stage in my career, however, impacting the life of one patient paled in comparison to impacting the lives of many.  The balance between looking out for my family and trying to change the world has always been a precarious one for me. Which brings me back to the concept of looking out for oneself.

In 2015, I was offered a job.  It was literally the lowest paying job that I could have found, but it offered an opportunity to make a difference.  That difference was in improving quality in nursing homes.  Thus, I reengaged on a journey that I'd started years before. To improve the quality of care of vulnerable older adults.  In its own way, taking the job was looking out for myself. It was just a new part of my journey. I learned to build a team around me by putting all of the successes on them.  The more that I did that, the more the success of our team built, and ironically, the more the perception of my success increased.  What I loved about that job was the fact that I was literally my own boss, not really answering to anyone else. Of course, that had limits, and when I pushed beyond those limits, it was time to leave.  There wasn't much reason to stay in a low paying job when I could not longer enjoy the freedom of doing what I wanted to do.

And so came my next job, which turned out to be a stepping stone to the polar opposite of the job I had just left.  This was the highest paying job that I could have ever found. I was in charge, yet in many ways I wasn't. There were ultimately others calling the shots, leading me into a dark hole where I used every means at my disposal to actually be in charge, and convinced myself that I was.  But, I was never truly convinced. Because, at the end of the day, we're always looking out for oneself.  As I reflect on my life and my work experiences, it strikes me that most people are always going to defer to what they perceive as best for them and their family. Perhaps that's where religion comes in, and the concept of doing unto others? Otherwise, wouldn't society just unravel into the anarchy of every man for themselves?

In looking out for oneself comes the concept of rationalization. We rationalize that what we're doing is for ourselves, or family, or even for a greater good. We do that despite the reality of the circumstances around us. We ignore signs and signals.  We develop excuses and reasons for our actions or the actions of others.  We want to believe.  Ironically, when it comes to religion, we want to believe. Otherwise, how else could we be looking out for ourselves?