Selflessness is the monthly theme/character trait at the school where I work.  All the middle schoolers are learning it and practicing it. They got a lesson on Monday morning, they’re having a class meeting about it next Tuesday, they’re running a food drive, and they’re taking it deeper with small Selflessness challenges. The definition we teach the students is:

Thinking about other people’s needs and making sacrifices of time, energy, money, pride, or service to meet those needs.

It is a beautiful trait to focus on this time of year, and I’m so glad we’re doing it schoolwide. It can be really beneficial for kids to practice thinking of others, doing things for others, and experiencing how the benefits reciprocate. I’ve got two Selflessness stories for you:

Story #1. I’m working with a student who struggles with mental health and attendance. They’re still trying to find the right medication, so even though they’re getting appropriate help it’s going to be a while before they can realistically expect to feel any better. Thinking about weeks and weeks of trying to attend school when it’s the last thing you feel like you can do is overwhelming. So, guess what our master plan is? Selflessness, daily dose.

Every day they come to school, we’re going to figure out one kind/selfless thing they can do for someone else, write it down on a calendar we’re using as a star chart, and talk about how it feels. Because we can get immediate positive feedback from our own brain (all the good stuff – dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin) from being kind or selfless, this could be the thing that makes attending school bearable, possible for these next weeks. 

In this case, we’re practicing Selflessness as a way to care for the Self during a time of great pain. 

Story #2. Someone at work found a way to leave me an anonymous gift of cash, with no way to return it. I don’t know who it was or how they could know anything about my financial situation right now, but I do know it was an intentional act of Selflessness. Toward me, for me. I had to close my office door and cry. 

That person had no way of knowing I was down to four diapers and had just gotten a supplies request from daycare and all day I’d been trying to ignore the alarm system firing in the back of my brain: 🚨 “What will I do? What will I do?” 🚨  …I was able to go get diapers AND wipes, and then buy my kid the new backpack she wanted when hers broke instead of telling her she had to use her old one from 4th grade. That person just decided to be Selfless for reasons I won’t get to know, and ended up catching me when I didn’t realize I was trust-falling. If you’re reading this, thank you 🥹

Taking time this month to discover or remember the value of Selflessness in caring for our own mental health, in creating community, and in practicing love as our baseline motivator is going to be so good. For me personally, and for our kids at school. 

At the same time, it feels weirdly contradictory to what I’m doing with this whole Selfyontology project. At odds. Selflessness seems like the opposite of self-focus, right? 

Nope. In my next post, I’ll try to convince you of this truth: The more Self-ish you become, the greater your capacity for Selflessness.