Right, okay, bear with me here.
Are we more driven by our love for ourselves, others, or a higher power?
My immediate answer was "others" until I thought about it some more. Why do we love others? Why do we help them out? Why do we sacrifice for others? Answer: it makes us feel good. It makes us feel good to help out somebody we love. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but my point is when stripped down, our motives are selfish. However unaware we are of this (probably because pleasing ourselves is so innate) our love for others is driven by our love for ourselves.
Take for example, a person who refuses himself a relationship as a form of punishment. He feels he doesn't deserve the pleasure of being in a relationship, nor have somebody love him.
The same argument applies to the "driven by love for a higher power" argument. We are benefited by our love for others.
So then, can we conclude humans are most driven by love for themselves? It makes sense, but not gonna lie, makes me sad.
You should be driven, first and foremost, by love for your self. If you have to choose between your life and a stranger's, you should choose yours. If you have to choose between your happiness and someone else's, you should choose yours. If you have to choose between your bills and someone else's, you should choose yours. If you do not make sure that your needs are met, your needs will not be met. If your needs are not met, there is precious little you can actually do for anyone else. A common axiom is "Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm." I consider protecting oneself and keeping oneself sound, safe, and healthy to be ultimate acts of self-love. Indeed, I think that each person is the single best person for these jobs in regards to themselves: who else is with you all the time? who knows your pits and strengths? etc, etc.
IMO If loving others didn't give us a good feeling we wouldn't know that we should do it. We know not to touch a hot burner because it would burn our hand. We also know that we can touch a soft blanket because it feels good. If loving others didn't feel good to us how would we know to do it ? I think that's just how our senses work. For people who feel numb all the time they don't get any signal from their body that loving others is good so they go through life not working towards it.
I think that just depends on how you define selfless. You'll still get a good feeling from doing something good but that doesn't mean it's not selfless unless you like being super technical. I think those are just our senses and it's how we deal with them that matters. Let's say you have $500 and you know somebody who it could really help but you also know a way you could spend it on yourself. Deciding to give it away instead of spending it on yourself is thinking of others, and your brain just let's you know it was the right choice. It's selfless because in a scenario where you could have picked yourself you instead picked somebody else. It seems weird to me to say because we respond to stimuli that we are wholly selfish beings. Having said that, some people definitely do nice things only for the fact it makes them feel better about themselves. It's just not necessarily the only way to be.
If you're helping someone just because it makes you feel good, you're doing something wrong. It's called "living through others" and is not healthy nor brings happiness. You can only truly love someone once you, yourself, are whole as a person. This means that whatever love you feel for someone comes for striving for something bigger than yourself.
It is and it is. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a good thing. You can make a good thing - an axe, a computer program or a good joke - and enjoy its existence. How is helping others different?but it's definitely a result and may even be a subconscious driving factor.