Can someone be selfless & selfish at the same time?

Question

Do you think a person can be selfless & selfish at the same time? 
Personally I feel like this can be very true. I love my parents deeply and they have been the giving tree, they’ve done so much for me and my siblings and I know they would do anything. But a lot of times they look at the world and situations around them from a very selfish point of view. They’re both very self involved and although they are doing things for their children (us) they have a very wow is me mentality all the time. They also refuse to be mature and see their faults in their behaviors and have accountability, which then intern negatively effects other people so I think that’s selfish. When I’ve had problems with  my mental health and have tried to talk to my mom about it she has gotten angry at me or has made it about herself. They will also do something for me, act like it’s no problem, and then later hold over my head.

Answer

No. Everything humans do is selfish. That doesn’t mean it’s not helping others as well, but that humans don’t do anything that doesn’t help them in some way. There is no such thing as a selfless act. Therefore, you can’t be selfish and selfless at the same time. I agree with Joey on this one

The basics of human behavior is that humans do things because they are reinforced for doing it. People do things to get that reinforcement

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You can call it whatever you want but in nature those words don’t mean shit.

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I think "selfless acts" can be done in a way where to only benefit the person has is self gratification or self pride. Such as blood and organ donation. Or volunteering. Everyone arguing there and no "selfless" acts are wrong. It depends on the intention of the act. If your intent is to help someone else and not yourself it is "selfless". While you might get recognition, strengthen a relationship or self pride, it is not the intent of doing the act.

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We all have different pieces of our personality. You can be selfless in some ways and still incredible selfish in others. It's not just a blanket one size fits all trait in my opinion.

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I personally feel like every single thing we do as humans is for our own selfish desires in some way. I don’t think being selfish is necessarily a bad thing.

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I agree with you, you can be both. Or maybe it’s easier to just say good people can be selfish with some things. Is that shitty people can be selfless with some things. Or that we are all mostly a mix of good and bad, haha. I think most people find some things easy to give, and some not so much. Similarly to you, I see this with my parents. They are genuinely generous people, and they are very well-off, so material things, money, trips, etc are “easy”for them to give. They are also very selfless with their time and efforts if I need help with something. Still, I’d say they, especially my mother, are very self-involved when it comes to emotionally supporting people, understanding where another person is coming from (they are good at it with strangers/big social issues, but not one-on-one), and things like that. I’d say I’m similar in that it is very easy for me to share, give away, give time, but things, but I’m not so good on emotional follow-up with loved ones. I think it just goes to show that no one can be all things to you, and you can’t be all things to someone. That can be hard to accept when it’s your immediate family relationships (parent or spouse to you, you to your own kids, etc), but it’s really not a failure or something that isn’t true about everyone else. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t always strive to be better, though! Interesting topic!

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Hmm based on what you said I’m thinking a better word would be “self-centered” rather than “selfish”.  I’m not really sure if one can be self-centered/selfish and selfless at the same time... maybe the distinction would be that they are self-centered (egocentric) but selfless when it comes to their family. I don’t know if I’m making sense... the semantics are tricky!

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I'm selfless because I bought everyone a box of crispy creme donuts. I'm selfish cause I ate the last one. You see what im saying? 😂

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Interesting

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I think humans are mostly selfish. They do things that benefit themselves and their family. We might think that helping the homeless or giving to others during the holidays counts as selfless acts, but think about it. Is that truly selfless? I’d say most people help others because it makes themselves feel good. It makes them feel like a good person. Many people do kind things because they believe in karma, or believe in heaven. You gotta be a good person to get into heaven, right? Selfish. You do good things because you think good karma will come your way, right? Selfish. You do good things and it makes you feel better, makes you feel like a good person, right? Selfish. I don’t know if there are any true selfless acts out there that don’t have an ultimate selfish motive behind it.