Call me a dream killer but allow me to defend myself on the argument. I do feel his need to express his feelings or he will forever have his "what ifs". But freedom of expression is not absolute, as my mass media law professor used to say. My friend had all the right to say what he feels, that I agree. But is this enough reason for him to actually do something? There is just a part of me that cannot find justice to the consequence his actions may be to the girl (who is a friend and a sister in faith), much more to her boyfriend.
I guess that is a fact of life. For the sake of self-satisfaction, people tend to overlook what their actions may actually mean and end up with for another person moreover the people behind this other person. I think it's man's innate nature to be selfish.
Social philosopher and author of The Wealth of Nations (1776) Adam Smith posed the same idea. In his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), he noted:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
Man's decision is driven by his selfish nature. Because of this nature that man is able to exist in a market with a "free hand". Only if man identifies himself with another will he allow himself with some sort of compromise with his own decisions.
Yes, I admit. I can somehow identify with the characters in my friend's story which is why I may seem to have a strong stand on the situation.
A friend asked me out a few years ago, to which I immediately said yes simply because I wanted to spend time with him. We have going out, that I must admit, but not in a romantic sense. We've been good friends for years. We shared the same interest in films. We've argued and seen compromises with our political opinion. And the best thing about our friendship is that we can talk about God and His role in our lives despite the difference in our religion. My friends were more than ecstatic when I told them we were going out.
But there was just one problem. God had already told me who He wanted me to be with. And the worst part, the guy that God wanted me to be with was literally a headache. He hates my political opinion. He only communicates with me when he feels like it. There was so much of himself going on, I doubted that he ever cared for me as much as I did for him.
A few days before our date, God consistently talked to me. We've argued a lot but He finally allowed me to go because He wanted me to be happy. He also told me that we will eventually become a couple. But because He is not the man He intended for me, we will eventually find ourselves breaking up. And the girl He intended him to be with will be waiting, so is his entrance to God's kingdom.
We all know what happened next. I backed out from our date. He hated me and I can not blame him. It took a few months before he finally talked to me but the friendship was no longer there. A few months more, the guy God wanted me to be with got married to someone else.
If I had been selfish, I would have not only compromised the future of the two guys in my life, but that of the girl intended for my friend as well. The point of the matter is, decisions are so much easier when we take account only of ourselves, but that is not how God created us. Our lives are so much intertwined with others that our decisions may actually affect not only the person close to us but the people connected to them as well.
In the words of a a French poet Paul Valery, "We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves."
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