The other day, I was watching 'Friends' re-runs on Nick. The episode came on that was about Joey doing a telethon for PBS saying that he wants to do a good deed and get some TV exposure. Then Phoebe says that it's not a good deed, and that he just wants to be on TV, so it's completely selfish. Joey responds by saying that her being the surrogate for her brother's kids was selfish, because it made her feel really good, therefore making it a selfish action. "Sorry, but there's no such thing as a selfless good deed!"

While this show is purely for entertainment, I think that this episode has a good point. There is no such thing as a selfless good deed. Most of the time, we do things to help others because it makes us feel good about ourselves, and we feel like we've given back to our community. The want or need to feel good makes our actions in some way selfish.

Take volunteering, for example. While most of the time we're not forced to volunteer, there's normally something in it for us. Whether it's to fulfill service hours in high school, to develop relationships with people that we want to have connections with, or to feel good and happy with ourselves, doing service isn't purely selfless.

But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just because we want to feel good and feel like we did something positive to help others doesn't mean that we're bad people. On the contrary, we are willing to sacrifice our time and effort to help others, instead of just sitting back and focusing on ourselves and our lives. And even if that makes us a little selfish, I'd take that over not helping others any day.