Everyone is self-interested, and that’s OK.

When I think about the last time I did something nice for another person, I start to wonder – did I do the nice thing because I was solely concerned about the other person? Or was I doing it because in part, I was also satisfying an underlying need of my own?

Most of us know people who we consider to be quite selfless. These are the people who will do everything for everyone else, and seldom appear to focus on their own needs. These people are helpful, patient and kind – the first to offer support and to lend a hand. These might be the ones that many of us refer to as “people-pleasers”, and some of them will even affix this label to themselves, with a small degree of reluctant pride.

On the surface, these people appear to be the best part of humanity. Unconcerned with their own agenda, they will drop everything to help a colleague or friend, sometimes at a cost to themselves.

But it could be that these people are just like everyone else – actually concerned with their own agenda – it’s just that their own agenda has the side effect of providing a benefit for other people.

Helping other people feels good.

We all know that feeling of satisfaction when we do a good deed for someone else. It feels good to help somebody whether it’s a person we know, or even someone we don’t.

Donating to charity or volunteering our time provides a similar effect. That’s not to say that we aren’t concerned about how other people feel – it’s just that we get the benefit of both feeling good ourselves, and for someone else at the same time.

What’s interesting is that even unobserved good deeds can feel satisfying. When I’m walking the dog at the park, sometimes I’ll pick up rubbish that has been left by someone else. Nobody else sees me doing it, but it still feels good to have left the place cleaner for other people.

Doing something good doesn’t necessarily require an observer, and it doesn’t require somebody to credit us for our actions either. We still feel satisfaction from having had a positive impact on others or the world.

Those who benefit from charity don’t really know who gives them the donation, but it still makes us feel good for donating. The people who use the park and don’t see the rubbish that I picked up earlier have no idea that I was even there. All they see is a rubbishless patch of grass.

The flipside.

There’s the people-pleasers and the generous people, and then there’s the others. The people who seem overtly concerned about their own needs and prioritise them above all others.

These are the people who stab you in the back to get the promotion. To blame you for the error or take credit for the work you did. They won’t offer to help you, because they’re more concerned with what they need to accomplish. Some of these people look down on the more generous souls of the world. They regard them as foolish for not focusing on their own goals, and see them as people to take advantage of.

But are these two types of people so very different from each other? One goes out of their way to help others, while the other focuses on what they’ve got going on.

But both of them have a sense of identity – and that might be what they’re trying to satisfy.

The duality of humans.

For many years I’ve struggled with the idea that a single person can present two (or more) very different sides of themselves in different situations. I used to work for a large international consulting firm, and I’d observe the behaviour of the senior partners of the company in various circumstances.

There was one particular partner that stood out to me. He was a fairly ruthless operator when he needed to be, and there were countless stories of him being scathingly critical of some of the people working for him, to the point where he wasn’t well-liked within the team.

He seemed to me to be the poster-child for self-interest – presenting whatever image he needed to, to get him to where he wanted to go. He was charismatic and personable, so he was great with clients. He knew just enough about the topics he was consulting on to be able to speak sensibly about them, although he didn’t know a great deal beneath the surface level. However, he had competent people around him to make up for his knowledge gaps.

He despised being made to look bad and became strongly triggered if a client perceived him as ill-informed or of doing a bad job, and he’d take those feelings out on the people around him. But all-in-all, if you didn’t have a close working relationship with him or become the subject of his scorn, he was a “nice guy”.

If someone is a reliably bad person I can understand that, even if I might not like it. I know what to expect. What challenged me most about this particular person was that he presented such contradictory sides of himself in different settings.

The starkest contrast I observed that exposed this duality was his public-facing charity work. He sat on various boards and championed different causes, showing up on social media as a bastion of philanthropy and as a devoted family man.

I found myself wondering whether this was even the same person. How could this human be so devious and nasty in one setting, while showing seemingly-genuine characteristics of the devoted family man and charitable contributor in others? And all without his head exploding from the strain of living two existences?

Over time, I’ve come to believe that it’s all about identity. This doesn’t make him a good person necessarily, or excuse all of his past sins, but I think it goes some way to explaining what I observed during that time.

When we align with our identity, we feel satisfied.

Our sense of identity sustains and drives us. It guides our behaviour and sets the boundaries within which we choose to live our lives. Our identity is that thing inside that says:

“I am this type of person”.

I’m the type of person who helps others. The type of person who is a people-pleaser. The type of person who is successful. The type of person who is famous. The philanthropist. The environmental advocate. The devoted family man. The intellectual. The strongest.

Our identity is who we believe ourselves to be. We feel good when we take actions that align with these beliefs. And of course, there are many beliefs about ourselves that make up this identity.

We can be someone who simultaneously cares about the environment, our family and being the best athlete. Or someone who highly values career success at the same time as philanthropy.

At the end of the day, we want to be somebody who can honestly say to themselves “I am this type of person”. We all want to take action to align with our identity, which is why I believe that everyone is really self-interested.

In that respect, the career-climbing, back-stabbing executive is no different than the helpful colleague who will drop everything to focus on your priorities instead of theirs. They’re both trying to satisfy their sense of identity.

But self-interested does not necessarily mean selfish, and these are not equivalent. There is a real difference in the way in which these behaviours manifest themselves, and the impact they may have on others.

So how does this help us? Do we simply accept that in the pursuit of trying to satisfy various aspects of their identity, some people will trample us, while others may be helpful?

We certainly can’t force someone to adopt the identity we’d like them to, in a way that suits us. But we can start to consider how our identity shapes our own behaviour and impacts those around us.

I think we’re all self-interested, in our own way. Sometimes our self-interest helps others, and sometimes it doesn’t. Being aware of the difference is helpful. We’ll eventually run into trouble if our effort to maintain our own identity continuously creates friction for others.

But I think it’s comforting to know that we have something in common with everyone else.

We’re all self-interested, and that’s OK. It’s the way that our self-interest crashes into other people that we need to be most conscious of.