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Think humans are born selfish? Think again. Dacher Keltner reveals the compassionate side to human nature.

Humans are selfish. It’s so easy to say. The same goes for so many assertions that follow. Greed is good. Altruism is an illusion. Cooperation is for suckers. Competition is natural, war inevitable. The bad in human nature is stronger than the good.

These kinds of claims reflect age-old assumptions about emotion. For millennia, we have regarded the emotions as the fount of irrationality, baseness, and sin. The idea of the seven deadly sins takes our destructive passions for granted. Plato compared the human soul to a chariot: the intellect is the driver and the emotions are the horses. Life is a continual struggle to keep the emotions under control.

Even compassion, the concern we feel for another being’s welfare, has been treated with downright derision. Kant saw it as a weak and misguided sentiment: “Such benevolence is called soft-heartedness and should not occur at all among human beings,” he said of compassion. Many question whether true compassion exists at all—or whether it is inherently motivated by self-interest.

Read this fascinating article here.

I just love when science confirms that one of the best ways to feel happiness is through helping others feel better.  This article about compassion is truly fascinating because it uses the most incredible brain technology available to confirm what philosophers and scientist have argued about for centuries. Being compassionate and empathetic to the feelings of others does make us happier, and there are mountains of scientific evidence of the physical and psychological benefits enjoyed by happier people.  Emotional stress has been linked to over 80% of the most common illnesses, so it makes sense in so man ways, including the financial impact stress related disease has, to provide our children with not only the lessons to teach them they can choose for themselves the kind of life they want to have, but give them tools to enjoy the experience.  Character education in schools and at home is critical to the turning around of the upward spiral in childhood depression.  Science has also proven the desired effect, happiness, can be achieved without pharmaceutical intervention.