Imagine a world without selfishness...

I divide selfishness into two different things:

1. The wish to be better than or have an advantage over others, often found with greed.
2. Making decisions to one's own advantage for self-preservation.

While I strongly believe that currently some selfishness of type 2 is still necessary (mostly because there is a certain amount of people who constantly exercise type 1), I am certain that type one is only in the way of people (even the ones using it) and eventually human evolution.
I am hoping for a world one day in which people will help each other without questions and without having to be cautious about who they help (i.e. when helpfulness is abused or exploited). But the biggest part of humanity is still far from this dream.

One question I often ask myself is how can I truly live by my beliefs when others don't ?

I admit that there are times when I cannot live by my own rules the way I want to, when I just don't have the energy to give to others - that would be a case of selfishness type 2 which I call the "unselfish selfishness". Sometimes you simply can't. But whenever I can, I make an effort to make people around me feel good or at least a bit better, and believe it or not: This constant giving results in constant receiving. Be it a smile or a nod or a thank-you - kindness will come back to you.

You may believe in God or Karma or Energy - or not. It has nothing to do with faith, but with experience.

If you want a less "esoteric" explanation: Doing good to others (after doing it for a while) will make you feel better about yourself, and that will show in your attitude, your behavior, even your face. Others will be able to detect these changes and feel better about you, and they will be more likely to be good to you.

OK, back to the original topic which is that "selfish selfishness" always stands in the way of human evolution.
There is a book series that deals with the topic: The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (I already mentioned it). I do not agree with all of the ideas in it, but one of the general thoughts is that humanity is constantly evolving towards a "higher" plane of existence in which we all can work together without greedy selfish goals, and in the end money will no longer be necessary because everyone will selflessly do their own thing to supply food and other necessities. This also sounds a lot like Gene Roddenberry's vision in Star Trek (mostly seen in The Next Generation and following series - the original Star Trek series was only vaguely based on his ideas since the TV station wanted a Western type show with lots of action...).

Now theoretically I believe in this vision - if more and more people let go of selfishness, others will find that they can safely do the same once a certain level of trust has been established. Cooperation will always create better results than opposition - no one has ever won the heart of a loved one by opposition.

Practically I have yet to see the level of selflessness and trust rise (Redfield expected it to rise visibly with the turn of the century).

From experience I know that there is nothing in this world anyone can do to change another person - that is something that everyone has to find out and to for themselves. But people learn the best from example, and my hope is that if more and more people will live their lives in an unselfish way and gain the results from doing so (maybe even touching the lives of many other people on the way), it will be an example big enough to move the many...