You must give in order to receive. Without giving you become effect of your own lack of cause. To be “cause” you must give to others .Self importance is a good way to be effect and not cause. Unwanted effects on self are caused by self importance. To have true happiness for self you must first make someone else happy. “Watching out for number one” is a misnomer. The term should be “watching out for others “. There is more power in helping others than in helping oneself. It is otherwise an illusion. When you despise another, you despise yourself. When you hurt another, you hurt yourself, as it goes.
Being cause in life seems contrary to how you feel and how you think you must act for greatest survival. Is there greater joy in proving that you are right or is there greater joy in acknowledging the rightness in others. Should the way you feel be the way you act or is the way you feel at times a trap to greater unrest.
Should one not act for greatest survival rather than the way one feels?
When you can let others be who they are, understand them, admire them, communicate with them, only then can you be cause and allow yourself to be heard.
Does one need to swallow their pride, or be submissive in their nature?
Only the greatest of men can be humble in their nature. It is those men that become our greatest leaders. For a true leader one at greatest cause can understand human nature and communicate to those with the least amount of self importance but with the greatest concern and care of others. He grants the greatest of importance to each and every person in his group.
If you want to have it your way help others get it their way. This may seem to be a dichotomy but looked at more closely I think not. Many parts of life tend to go in this direction, which tends to confuse people greatly. Only with greater inspection can truth reveal itself.