Grief and Selfishness

     According to Seneca in his letter 99 to Lucilius, grief is a selfish emotion that we feel when we experience loss of somebody that we care about.  To me, grief can take many forms and roles in people's lives, and selfishness is definitely one of them.  Some people when they experience loss choose to dwell in a state of withdrawal or character change that they solely attribute to grieving over the loss of somebody that they care about.  Seneca is right, though he may come off a little attacking, in calling these people selfish because you cannot use the death of someone else as an excuse to do whatever you want and just blame it on your grieving process.
     Take a recovered drug addict of 20 years for example.  Say his father was his hero and was the main person that helped him to get and stay clean all those years of his life.  Suddenly, his father passes away and his son doesn't know how to handle his loss and turns back to drugs as a coping method to help him with his grief.  This is not an acceptable way to grieve for one, but it is also selfish in nature for this man to use his father's passing as an excuse to return to his bad habits.  Not only has this man used his father's death as an excuse to return to the things that his father helped him for so long to get rid of, he actually feels justified in doing so because the loss of his dad has presented it as an acceptable relapse opportunity.
    Grieving in itself does take many different forms, but Seneca is correct in one way or another when he calls grief selfish in nature.  People are always looking for an excuse to justify their actions and not take responsibility for what they are doing.  So while grief is a complex emotion that many people will handle differently, it is not fair to right off the idea that people will manipulate this emotion for their own personal satisfaction.