“And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: I’ve seen people who discovered a great meaning in their jobs and they became so absorbed in that that they didn’t have time to become self-centered. They loved their job. And the great prayer that anyone could pray at that point is: “O God, help me to love my job as this individual loves his or hers. O God, help me to give my self to my work and to my job and to my allegiance as this individual does.” And this is the way out. And I think this is what [Ralph Waldo] Emerson meant when he said: “O, see how the masses of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there, some great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.” And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

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“(…) When we are absorbed in other things, in the not-self, we forget the self. There is nothing unnatural about it. But, why forget the self through excess of attachment? Wisdom lies in never forgetting the self as the ever-present source of both the experiencer and his experience.”

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“How can we live in this universe with a balance and with a type of perspective that keeps us going smoothly and we are not too absorbed in self?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: Now one will inevitably raise the question: How then do we conquer self-centeredness? How do we get away from this thing that we call self-centeredness? How can we live in this universe with a balance and with a type of perspective that keeps us going smoothly and we are not too absorbed in self? How do we do it?

“You're never alone when you're totally self-absorbed.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/6457-An-Exclusive-Interview-With-Yahtzee
Other Articles

“One of the ways to rise above this self-centeredness is to move away from self and objectify yourself in something outside of yourself. Find some great cause and some great purpose, some loyalty to which you can give yourself and become so absorbed in that something that you give your life to it. Men and women have done this throughout all of the generations. And they have found that necessary ego satisfaction that life presents and that one desires through projecting self in something outside of self. As I said, you don’t solve the problem by trying to trample over the ego altogether. That doesn’t solve the problem. For you will always have the ego and the ego has certain desires, certain desires for significance.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: I think one of the best ways to face this problem of self-centeredness is to discover some cause and some purpose, some loyalty outside of yourself and give yourself to that something. The best way to handle it is not to suppress the ego but to extend the ego into objectively meaningful channels. And so many people are unhappy because they aren’t doing anything. They’re self-centered because they aren’t doing anything. They haven’t given themselves to anything and they just move around in their little circles. One of the ways to rise above this self-centeredness is to move away from self and objectify yourself in something outside of yourself. Find some great cause and some great purpose, some loyalty to which you can give yourself and become so absorbed in that something that you give your life to it. Men and women have done this throughout all of the generations. And they have found that necessary ego satisfaction that life presents and that one desires through projecting self in something outside of self. As I said, you don’t solve the problem by trying to trample over the ego altogether. That doesn’t solve the problem. For you will always have the ego and the ego has certain desires, certain desires for significance. The three great psychoanalysts of this age, of this century, pointed out that there are certain basic desires that human beings have and that they long for and that they seek at any cost. And so for Freud the basic desire was to be loved. Jung would say that the basic desire is to be secure. But then Adler comes along and says the basic desire of human nature is to feel important and a sense of significance. And I think of all of those, probably- certainly all are significant but the one that Adler mentions is probably even more significant than any: that all human beings have a desire to belong and to feel significant and important. And the way to solve this problem is not to drown out the ego but to find your sense of importance in something outside of the self. And you are then able to live because you have given your life to something outside and something that is meaningful, objectified. You rise above this self-absorption to something outside. This is the way to go through life with a balance, with the proper perspective because you’ve given yourself to something greater than self. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s a great cause, it’s a great loyalty, but give yourself to that something and life becomes meaningful.