Did you do it for your nafs?

Do you believe that people actually do something for other people? Or do they all do everything for themselves? I mean, if you go buy yourself a new tv for your own appartment that's just for yourself, right? Or maybe it's self care? Or necessary?

What if you bought a tv for your family? Did you do it for yourself? Did you do it for them? Maybe for your family, so you can watch your favourite tv show on saturdays together? That's definitely for the family, right? But was it necessary to buy a big tv? Or was the tv too small? Maybe grandmother can't watch with the rest of the family because the tv was too small.

What if it's all economics? Maybe you can count up everything everybody does in benefits. So there would be monetary benefits and other benefits. Probably we could transfer it all to money: How about the money you would get for an hour of your time. Then, every second has a prize. Maybe your over all wellness and happiness benefits could be countable in money by thinking about how much money you could save if you wouldn't get ill earlier. Learning a new language decreases a risk for Altzheimer's by let's say 20%, so you could count that as 20% of the prize an Altzheimer's treatment would cost per year.

But what if we don't need capitalist economics to explain the world, maybe then there are a ot of things that I just do for others? But do we do that to see them smile? To make them feel happy? Don't we also feel happy that we made them happy? Maybe that's our niyyah (intention) behind our altruism. Maybe we just wanted to be the hero? The saviour? The gift giver?

Maybe we don't save people in danger for the sake of their lives but for ourselves, so that we are not guilty. So that we are the heros? Is there anything we actually do for others if we put it like that?
Do activists speak up for other people or to become famous or for a thank you? Do doctors practise their work to make people healthier or for being the best doctor in the world?

Is it sufficient to not think about one's own benefit while doing something for someone? But there are some mindless teenagers travelling to poor villages, actually being useless there but pretending to help. This cannot be altruistic. Even if they don't think about their own benefits, and actually believe that they save the world with their presence.

So, maybe if people want to do something for others, then consider the options, check out how they can do best, and ask for consent by the ones they're doing it for? That sounds better. But, why do they want to do something in the first place? For their own nafs (ego)? But if you do it like that, with a good niyyah maybe then it's not for your nafs?

I think it would be a sad world if there would be nothing we wouldn't be doing for our nafs as a last consequence. But isn't that something I argue to feel better, so I argue for my nafs?

Der Text ist vom 02.02.2020.