I have recently found myself in deep pondering upon the nature of Self Interest and whether it is truly a principle aligned with the highest good, as Ayn Rand and Adam Smith contend. One friend helped to define Self Interest with the explanation,
“With the understanding that a self-interested act is self-benefiting and enhances your life, then acting against your self-interest is to act against your life. If one consistently acts against his own self-interest, he will die. A company that gives its product for free to the poor for the sole reason that acting against ones own self-interest is admirable, then the company will soon cease to exist.”
In order for a self-interested act to be truly self-benefiting it must seek action that will benefit it in the eternal frame of reference. The teachings of Jesus Christ reveal that the thing which will be of most worth is to seek the virtue of Charity or Love; not mindless free handouts, which we know to be more destructive to a soul than they are helpful, but the capacity to have paradoxically lose the self.