Putting Yourself Is Selfish Essay

“Putting yourself first is not selfish. Thinking about yourself constantly is selfish”. Knowing what is best for yourself is a key to surviving, and your survival should be your first priority. Sacrifices will undoubtedly have to be made, but in a matter of life or death, afflictions are to be expected. Survival is not selfish because it is natural human instinct to survive, it is self preservation, and the reality of tough situations is not everyone will live. Humans have a natural instinct to survive in life threatening situations. When in these situations, adrenaline kicks in and survival becomes the main goal. This is because “People are animals with animal instincts”(Deep Survival). People begin to only think of ways to get out of the …show more content…
Sometimes the risk is too high to try to save someone who has no chance. The more practical decision would be to save the ones who have a greater opportunity at survival. A great example of this is when “climber Simon Yates was attempting to rope his already-injured friend Joe Simpson down a mountain in bad weather when the belay went awry. Simpson ended up hanging off a cliff, unable to climb up, and Yates, unable to lift him up and losing his own grip on the mountain, ended up cutting the rope to Simpson to save himself”(Is Survival Selfish?). Yates was being pulled down by Simpson and they both would have fallen if he hadn’t cut the line. However, by cutting the line, Yates was able to save himself and Simpson miraculously survived a 100 foot fall. If you were in this situation you would just wait there and not do anything, right? Just wait for the rope to break so you didn't have to feel the guilt of saving yourself? (Sarcasm) Saving yourself does not mean that you did not try or want to help others, it means that you have accepted the fact that it is the best option in order to survive. For example, “When the ocean liner Titanic sank in April of 1912, one of the few men to survive the tragedy was J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of the company that owned the ship. After the disaster, however, Ismay was savaged by the media and the general public for climbing into a lifeboat and saving himself when there were other women and children still on board”(Is Survival Selfish?). In this situation, it seemed as if Ismay did not care at all whether or not the women and children survived. However, he had already helped many of them and only got in the boat when there were no others left in the area. What would you expect him to do? Just stay there and die when