Alex Shalman at Practical Personal Development (a blog about self help and personal growth) is hosting a Donation Contest in which you press a button and he donates a dollar.

He is going to donate up to $500 to the charity of the winner’s choice. What a creative way to combine the growth of his blog with service to others!

Here Comes the Nay Sayers

The interesting part is that he reported that people are already questioning his motives in his week-one update. It turns out that some people are coming down on him for using charity to gain publicity.

I don’t know why this surprised me. It never occurred to me that anyone might find anything wrong with his intentions, but I was quickly reminded that there is an existing school of thought which questions any action that is self-serving.

Money is Bad

Some people think that none of us should be making money from our blogs. In their view, even though monetizing our sites allows us to share information for free, we should not accept money, even from those who wish to give it to us.

When you think about it on a philosophical level, no action is completely safe from accusations of selfish motives. If you give to charity, people might say that you were looking to gain recognition. If you give anonymously, people might say that you did it to produce feelings of joy within yourself.

Selfish-phobia

The idea that selfishness is bad has been so ingrained in our minds that some people are phobic about it. Have you ever considered that being too unselfish might be just as bad?

The best example I can think of is in a relationship. When one person is always subverting their own needs to satisfy the needs of the other, they are teaching their partner to disrespect them. The more they allow their partner to walk all over them, the more it happens. The more they try to make their partner happy, the more unhappy their partner realizes they are.

Balance

The key is balance. It’s unhealthy to be on any extreme of the selfishness spectrum. It’s okay to take care of yourself first. Only when you have filled yourself up can you spill over onto others.

The anti-selfishness crowd is usually synonymous with the anti-capitalist crowd. They think that there should never be a profit motive in anything that we do. They often clash with the grotesquely rich.

Once again, the key is balance. If profits were never a motive, nothing would ever get done. At the same time, it’s not healthy to hoard ungodly amounts of money.

Synergy in Blogging

Blogging is a great example of the synergy that exists between a healthy balance of self-interest and service to others. If not for the money-making potential of blogging, much of the wonderful free information that is available to everyone who wants it would not exist.

If not for this system, a charity might not be getting the $500 that Alex is willing to give. You could argue that he should give it anyway, but come on… would you?