020: Living for others
On the quiet power of shifting the center away from the self
The weight of the self
What prompted this essay? Voting.
Not exactly the obvious path to a reflection on living for others, I know. But after casting my ballot recently for local elections and previously for presidential elections, I kept turning over a quiet discomfort…how much of our public life has become a private transaction. How often we make choices, not just at the polls but in our days, with only ourselves in mind.
That’s where this began. A simple act, done alone, that opened a door into something larger. Stay with me as I try to follow that thread.
We vote the way we live now: alone, in our heads, surrounded by noise.
There was a time, perhaps imagined, when voting felt like a civic act, something communal, grounded in a sense of shared life. Now, for many, it feels like a consumer choice. We ask: what will this candidate do for me? Will my taxes go down? Will my life improve? Will my family benefit?
Rarely do we pause long enough to ask harder questions. Whose lives will be made harder by this choice? What kind of community will this create? Who is not in the room when we speak, and how do they fare when we act?
This is not a political critique, but a personal one. It is about how we have come to move through the world with the self as compass, as mirror, as measuring stick. The questions may change depending on the moment, but the orientation stays the same: What’s in it for me?
There is no shame in this. We have been taught to think this way. We have been encouraged, even rewarded, for doing so. Every ad, every headline, every app and platform nudges us to refine ourselves, protect ourselves, center ourselves. From self-care to self-improvement to self-expression, the message is clear: the self comes first.
But sometimes I wonder what has been lost in that exchange. Not in grand moral terms, but in the quiet ones. What happens when the first and final question we ask is always about us?
"What happens when the first and final question we ask is always about us?"
There is a different kind of life. It does not erase the self, but it places it in relation to others. It does not dismiss personal needs, but it resists building a world where only personal needs matter. It orients itself outward. Slowly, gently, it grows quieter. It listens more than it speaks. It moves with less urgency and more regard.
To live for others is not to become less. It is to become less central. And in a culture built around the self, that shift is not small. It is radical in its quietness. Subtle in its subversion. A different kind of presence entirely.
A misunderstood life
“Living for others” is a phrase we’ve half-forgotten. Or worse, misunderstood.
It brings to mind a version of ourselves we’ve been warned against. The person who gives too much. The one who disappears inside other people’s needs. The martyr. The doormat. The helper who never helps herself.
And sometimes that warning is right. There are lives so caught in care for others that they begin to collapse inward. But that’s not the life we mean here. Living for others does not mean losing yourself. It means locating yourself inside a shared world.
There is a difference between being selfless and being self-aware enough to make room for someone else. The first can become erasure. The second is spaciousness.
This is not a plea for moral purity. It’s not about being good. It’s about seeing the quiet potential in moving through the world with less emphasis on what we get—and more attention to what we make possible.
To live for others is not to erase the self entirely, but to shape it in relationship. It is to remember that strength can also be quiet, and that influence does not always have to be visible to be real.