Seeking balance in all things. Why I cringe at the mention of "selflessness".

One of my primary ethics is "Seek balance; in all things".
It's hard to find and sustain a healthy and ethical balance between selfishness and selflessness. It's been my observation and experience that:
As a way to relate to others and to ourselves from day to day:
Neither extreme are in anyone's best interests. If we go through life with the idea that "My interests don't matter (or don't matter as much as other people's), ... then we are being self-abusive.
It would, of course, be just as destructive to go through life thinking and acting-out the idea that other people's interests matter less than ours. By interests, I mean the things that really matter; like rights, health, safety, happiness, empowerment, etc.. When I hear someone speak of being selfless as a way of life, I recognize that as the same mistake that I was programmed (in my youth) (by parental Narcissists) to wrongly regard as virtuous. My mother, for example, was a bottomless pit of need.
She saw in me the potential to be psychologically molded into an endless source of giving-ness; a wellspring of kindness that asks for nothing in return.
Towards that end, she promoted ideals for ME to adopt ... that (in most ways) she herself could not.
-Ideals like being: "long suffering" and "self sacrificing".
As a socio-politically and religiously Ultra-Conservative Narcissist, she had "transactional values".
Lacking much (if any) sense of innate worth/worthiness to draw joy, health, and empowerment from life, ... such people feel a 'sense of need' to find justifications for everything good in life; and even for just existing. Likewise, they expect you should do the same. Whatever they base their worthiness-ess on is what they'll think yours should-be/is based on too. In that case, if you get caught NOT thinking/speaking/behaving per their chosen framework for what it takes to "deserve" respect, health, or empowerment,... they'll probably think of you as being "entitled"; -claiming a right you haven't earned. Their sense of moral disgust will feel righteous. This can become very ... consequential, if that person is a care-provider or anyone else in a position of power over you. They might then seek to block your access to better health and function; even in direct contradiction to their job description. Why? In order to "set right" the "wrong" (or prevent the wrong) of you getting some benefit you don't "deserve". This is core to how racists reason. They imagine that black people (for example) should accept having LESS because "those people" are seen as being in bad situations in the first place ... due to not yet having earned access to a better and longer life. It's the same with ableism. Internally-ugly, super-abled-persons can look down on the disabled; as people who should stop asking for help and start seeing their disadvantages as "opportunities" to build resilience and learn self-sufficiency. "Why should we sponsor tax-paid services for workers to provide social company or to help house-chores for people who are fat, tired, injured, depressed, have overwhelming phobias, or have significant pain? Unless all four of their limbs are paralyzed, they can provide everything they need to themselves. Pain and sacrifice always builds character. The more of it, the better. I'm sick of entitled people". It would be exactly like saying "Why should we build RAMPS for people in wheelchairs, when they could just use their arms or their chins to inch their way upstairs?" Think of how much stronger their arms or chins would become!". It's the same with capitalist classism. They have a laundry list of ugly assumptions about other people's character baked into willfully ignorant narratives about causes and solutions. And because they've crutched their "worthiness"-es (for good health and respect) on what they themselves * "are" and * have done to "earn" it, they aren't willing to question those narratives. That, in, turn, prevents them from being willing to question their biases about all the "lesser" people. How can they be great if they have nobody to be greater than? There is a healthy way to solve that paradox. They just aren't interested. They're too busy giving themselves too much credit for their achievements, and being hypercritical of everyone who hasn't managed the same forms of success. This is how they numb the discomforts of their own secret self-loathing. "I may be shit. But I am less shit than "those people". I deserve a better life because I think, feel, speak, and work to qualify as deserving. I am made of better stuff. Thus, I do better stuff. They, I have earned better stuff. Anyone "down below me" who looks up for help ... is just "entitled". On the surface, they aren't entirely wrong. They did have certain advantages and they did DO something productive (towards goals) with those assets. And along the way, they did make sacrifices towards that goals. But on a deeper level, they don't accurately understand how they (nor anyone else) got into the situations they are in. Nor do they accurately understand the real solutions to other people's struggles. They have a story that justifies them and un-justifies you. And that's all they really care about. Likewise, my mother's values system (even when it came to human virtues, human worth, and human identity) were parsed out with that very same framework of justifications. Justified dominance hierarchies. Those "deserving" entitlements (totally different than how everyone else is "entitled") were based on sexism, ageism, religious privilege, parental ownership of children, etc..
That way, there was always somebody who had more rights than her or you.
But there was also always someone who had less rights (and ultimately mattered less) than her.

She paid her dues as 'somebody's bitch'
[although she wasn't honest enough to call it that]

- In her case, that was:
* her righteously-abusive husband,
* a conceptualized righteously-abusive God, and (to some extent)
* even the righteously-abusive elders of her religion. 

[For many of those years, that religion was the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Although, she eventually moved on to other God-awful Christian cults]

In trade, her kids owed those same dues to her;
 and to the larger organized system she felt beholden to (and defined by). 
This leads to the rest of her paradigm: Everything that matters in life ... as a system of barter.
In this context, to be "self-sacrificing" meant to voluntary auction one's own worth (the value of our "self" and all personal interests) down to either: much less or nothing; compared to whoever a person is being self-sacrificing for/to/about. As a Narcissist, her interests were all that ever really mattered. However, part of her perpetual 'need' was to feel valued and approved-of by towering male figures. She was the poster child for unresolved daddy issues. She kept looking to have those needs met by a "God" and God-proxy daddy figures. Thus, she was more than willing to make some pretty gross sacrifices for the male authority figures in her life (both real-and-imagined). In trade, she would be gifted the license to brainwash her children-property into giving her more than the sum of what she paid upwards into that human pyramid. But she didn't hold herself to the same standards she held others to. So it was only wrong for anyone-not-her to want equal-or-more return on her kindnesses. She explained it like this: "If you do something nice for someone and then they do something roughly the same for you, ... then you were paid for your kindness. There's nothing virtuous about being paid for your kindness. So if you want to really be virtuous ("like Jesus"), then you need to look for people with the greatest need. And then you need to be as self-sacrificing as you can be for them, without wanting or getting anything in return. The more it hurts and the more of your health (or your life) it costs, the more noble those sacrifices are." That wasn't really a fair description of what Jesus really did in the Christian stories. But even if we read it exactly how Christians want us to read it, then he didn't really sacrifice much. And he got a lot in return. Worse yet, according to his followers, he was using it as a way to emotionally blackmail (and run a protection racket against) everyone who hears about it. [although, just like my mother, they aren't honest enough to admit to such an accurate description of their paradigm] Back then, I wasn't trained to think critically. So I just accepted it all without scrutinizing it. I didn't even come close (at the time) to realizing how her entire Christian-Conservative worldview was a mess of extreme logical and ethical contradictions. In any case, I was raised/groomed into thinking that it was noble for me to be "self sacrificing". So I went through the next few decades of my life ... looking for a woman I could shine the brightest with. For that, I would need to be with someone of comparable extreme needs as what my mother suffered from. Once in those situations, I felt that I needed to be as self-sacrificing as I could be. The more I gave and the less I got in return, the more "noble" I imagined myself to be. But that's really not noble. It's self-abusing and self-destructive. Additionally, over-giving to over-takers is also enabling for abusers. That, in turn, makes them more habitualized into that dynamic.
In turn, that makes them even less capable to be (or, at least, go through the motions of being) a decent human towards/with other partners in their future.
But how does any of this relate to Jesus?
The example set by that literary character was complex.
Among those complexities:
*Jesus was extremely self-abusive and 100% self-destructive, to have went intentionally into that extreme and lengthy torture and death.
[Although, I would say it was a trivially temporary or fake death; if we grant the magical theme of the story].
No matter if it really happened or not, and no matter if he stayed dead or not, ... Each of those scenarios are ignoble for different reasons. In no case would it be noble. Worse yet,
*It served as a bad example that other self-abusing/self-destructive people who would later follow.
Self-sacrifice is so very core to what it means to be a "martyr" that these two terms are virtually synonymous. When early Christianity duped people into the idea that being a martyr is a good thing, ...
Those martyrs weren't just hurting themselves.
They were hurting the loved ones who had to stand back, powerless to help, as their parents, children, siblings, spouses, and friends ... violently martyred themselves for a cult's fantastically destructive lie.
The same is true to a lesser extent (but still great extent), when people must stand back powerless ... as cult-recruited loved ones make less immediately fatal sacrifices. Example? Staying married to abusers with the idea that "this is what God wants".
This is also why I say "never stay for the kids' sake" if someone is in a dysfunctional marriage. It sets a bad example "as good". In doing so, it normalizes extreme dysfunction and sets those kids up to make the same self-sacrificing mistakes in their future. They'll go on to emulate either the selfishly abusive-taker or the selflessly self-abusive giver. When we manipulate vulnerable people into the idea that they should be looking for something/someone greater (and moral valuable) than themselves to self-sacrifice for, ... that's exactly what they'll set out 'on a mission' to do.
And that will go very very badly for everyone.
However,
TBF, ... On very rare and unfortunate occasions, complete/utter self-sacrifice can be noble. I myself would sacrifice my health or my life to save/protect the health or life of my child. I might even do the same for a stranger in some very unlikely situations. But if I could accomplish the same without as much sacrifice, then I would. Meanwhile, I'm not basing my sense of worth on the idea that being willingly diminished or victimized somehow demonstrates nobility. If our compassion does not include a healthful amount for ourselves,

then our compassion is incomplete.​ ---
In all of our dealings, ... The danger in being completely selfless is that you risk having others take you for granted or take advantage of you.
In the case of Jesus,
he was taken advantage of by an unscrupulous Super-Father (or alter-ego, if we read that story such that he had some form of schizophrenic or multiple personality disorder).
In that story, he didn't even surrender to crucifixion with true consent. He argued and then lost that argument with the voices in his head.
He did not want to commit suicide by proxy. He was pressured into it.
And so if we're really being objectively and rationally honest about that story,  ...
he lost his battle with mental illness.
He didn't even realize that's what it was.
But most of his friends realize it.
Otherwise, they would have all helped him get it done. And more quickly (<--- link). 
This is why we can say Judas actually betrayed Jesus.
Because he helped Jesus commit an egregious act of self-harm.
No amount of rationalization can negate this fact of what what transpired in the story. Whereas, if we say it was an actually-good thing that Jesus sacrificed himself for others, then: Judas was actually a co-redeemer; necessary for the salvation of humans. And then all the other apostles were disloyal posers who refused to HELP Jesus do the "good" of un-alive-ing himself. This was, after all, how the Hebrews justified brutally slaughtering innocent lambs for "forgiveness". If we correlate those ritual sacrifices to the death of Jesus AND if we humor the idea that those sacrifices were a good thing, then: The Jews were doing a "good thing" to slaughter those lambs. In that case, and unavoidably, the Romans, Jews, and Judas were ALSO doing a "good thing" to help slaughter that other lamb. Christians can't make up their mind if it was a good thing or a bad thing. So they just say it was both; without thinking more deeply about it.

Stepping outside of that mess, I find myself (dual meaning) with more clearly defined and consistent set of personal values. As such, when I reflect on what it means to be "selfless", I recognize it as is the opposite of selfish. Now, if we only mean it as a reference to small and occasional moments of being kind for kindness sake, without any expectation of return, then that's fine. It could even be a beautiful thing. It's just not usually meant that way. And it certainly isn't what's happening in the Christian mythos. In any case,

I submit there is a more beautiful and healthful way to be. We could, instead, see everything and everyone as a larger, living, breathing whole ... where every kindness is seen-and-intended as a wave of love that we send out and ripple forth ... with the full expectation of it returning to us (again and again) ... so that we too keep being built back up and inspired, again and again,... so we can keep sending the same beauty back out again and again into the larger whole of who "we" are.

This is how the larger living whole breathes and circulates that life-force to the larger body. This is neither a diminished "self" nor a forsaken "self". Therefore, it's not "selfless". Having a sense of (or dedication to) "less self" compared to someone else ... is unhealthy. The more we dial that up, the more dysfunctional it becomes. Dialed all the way up, to be "selfless" doesn't mean "less self". It means none. Glittery sparkles of selfless moments can be a very pretty thing. But (as I see it) we should be careful not to let selflessness become our larger story. I get the appeal of selflessness. In daily small does, there may be some merit. In rare and tragic situations, total self-sacrifice can have greatly more merit. But as a daily disposition and larger life mission, I just think there's a better way to frame our narrative of identity, values, and behaviors.