2. All "professionals" are far from perfect at their profession. At best, everyone is "doing their best" but oftentimes you are getting less than that due to incompetence/apathy. Everyone is "practicing" at their profession, and has tons of grey areas in aspects of their job where they might not be entirely knowledgable, but do their best to "fake it". We are talking all lines of work, including doctors, lawyers, accountants- professions requiring years of "higher education" where the expectation of perfection is pretty much there all the time for what they do, but they fuck up just as much as the kid at McDonalds that fails to hold the pickles on your burger order.
Two things
1. All co-workers are competition. Yes, some my be good friends to you, but at the end of the day, they will all forward their career interests over yours, including throwing YOU under the bus if need be for them to accomplish their goals.
2. All "professionals" are far from perfect at their profession. At best, everyone is "doing their best" but oftentimes you are getting less than that due to incompetence/apathy. Everyone is "practicing" at their profession, and has tons of grey areas in aspects of their job where they might not be entirely knowledgable, but do their best to "fake it". We are talking all lines of work, including doctors, lawyers, accountants- professions requiring years of "higher education" where the expectation of perfection is pretty much there all the time for what they do, but they fuck up just as much as the kid at McDonalds that fails to hold the pickles on your burger order.
No one legitimately cares about anyone else. All our social interactions are based around getting something out of the encounter, whether that be money, sex or just the ability to feel good about yourself after you do something for someone else.
No one actually cares about you and everyone only cares about personal gain.
In your 20's you worry about what people think of you.
In your 30's you don't care what people think of you.
In your 40's you realise that people never cared anyway.
"Just be yourself" is not actually good advice for getting ahead in work, friendships, and romantic relationships. Honest self reflection and self improvement is periodically needed to improve your skills, confidence, and usefulness to others.
No one legitimately cares about anyone else. All our social interactions are based around getting something out of the encounter, whether that be money, sex or just the ability to feel good about yourself after you do something for someone else.
No one actually cares about you and everyone only cares about personal gain.
The other truth is that nothing you do matters in any capacity. Nothing you do is gonna have any effect on the world and you aren't gonna be remembered after maybe 3 generations. Life is one exhausting crawl where the vast majority is dull, shitty and mundane. Your moments of genuine happiness are gonna be few and far between so you better enjoy them while you can.
I'm sorry that you have circumstances that make you feel this way, but this simply isn't true.
It is though. Maybe I worded it a little too strongly.
There is no such thing as a completely selfless action would be a better way to put it. No one does anything for no reason and there is always something said person will gain out of doing something for someone else. Even if you think you aren't gaining anything yourself, you subconsciously know you are. Satisfaction, attention, pride are all things that people want to feel when helping others. It's just the way it is. Not saying it's bad or evil either, it's just the way our species works.
If you stretch it all the way to "if someone does something self sacrificing they still get some satisfaction for having done it for someone else by a chemical reaction happening in their brain", sure, but that just seems like a completely inane position to take.
A lot of people perform acts where they aren't, even sub-consciously, expecting any sort of reward or reciprocation from the other individual.