Hi Hardik -- it's an interesting question. I'll try to give a very roundabout reply.

Selfish. Devoted to or concerned with one's own welfare to the exclusion of regard for others.

Selfless. Having no regard for or thought of self; not self-centered; unselfish.

The definition is a bit misleading, I think, because "selfless" as you've used it (and as most of us use it) has a moral color. If someone absentmindedly drives his bicycle into a tree and falls off, we wouldn't call this selfless. In general I think selflessness is associated with sacrifice, not simply with forgetting one's self but with explicitly putting someone else first. This need not be done consciously (perhaps it never occurs to the person to put themselves first), but it generally needs to be a situation where "a rational outsider" (usually the person applying the label of selfless) recognizes that a personal need has been ignored, suppressed or superceded. In that sense I think the second and third parts of the definition are more true than the first, and yet the first is the one which is romanticized because of its absoluteness.

To get back to your question, I think it is very difficult to argue with the people who want to assume the worst of everyone. :-) Perhaps they are right. After all, even the most altruistic act towards another person might constitute fighting for our own species against, say, wild animals, or against the planet. So again, it depends on what we want "selfless" to mean. I think it's more interesting to ask the question about selflessness if we have defined it to be a quality which we can legitimately imagine people having. Even if this requires extreme saintliness, fine -- just so long as it is conceivably possible. I think unattainable absolutes are useful, don't get me wrong, but they tend to produce fairly flat models of human motivation (am thinking here of e.g. condemnation of the body in favor of spirit, and all manner of other religious debates in the medieval west).

Are there no truly selfless acts? Actually, my inclination would be to say the opposite -- that there are many selfless acts. In a world in which the presence of horror can be overwhelming, nonetheless it is meaningful to speak of the good -- not in a religious sense or in an abstract sense, but good as defined and done in many small ways by various people all around us, in many acts of kindness and joy hovering in unexpected places. And if recognizing and labeling that good means being a little lax with the word "selfless," well, that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Does having no regard for oneself imply forgetting about oneself?  I wouldn't have interpreted selfless to mean that one is either oblivious or unaware of oneself in an act, but rather, as you say, Solveig, that one puts others first, whether through struggle, desire, as a matter of principle, or as habit.  I generally assume that it is human nature to be self-interested in the first instance, and that concern with the interests of others comes with experience and maturity. Self interest is more primal.

As for the question -- is any act really selfless?  Cynics say there is no such thing as altruism because doing for others must necessarily be motivated by a desire to please oneself.  Acts of charity cannot be purely selfless, they say, because they are in some measure valuable to the giver, otherwise they would not be done.  This argument is not helpful, I think, because it is either too relativistic or too absolute.  It merely says that because a person has agency, or has to want to act in order to act, he or she is not free of the self.

Part of the problem it seems to me (and I grapple with this in trying to understand what constitutes an act of kindness or how to be a kinder person) is that, as a giver, we can never know with certainty how our act will be received by another, and as a recipient, we can never know with certainty what the motivation of the giver was.  If you mean well, but your friend doesn't appreciate what you've done, was yours an act of kindness?  Could you or should you have known better?  If you are a generous charitable donor because you want to be known as such or at the top of the social ladder or to assuage your guilt for living well, are you a kind person?  Does it matter what your motivation is?

On my blog I have written a lot about this, wondering if kindness is supposed to be easy or hard.  Most of my readers believe it should be easy, natural, and feel good.  I have tended to feel otherwise, perhaps because of the way I was raised, or perhaps because I imagine my drive toward self fulfillment and gratification to be strong.  Who knows?  It is a fascinating question.

I am also curious, Hardik, to know what you mean when you say there is always "a pinch of hypocrisy" in you (or humans generally). I think you're absolutely right.  Is it selfish if you expect from others what you would not do yourself, or if you do to others what you would not want done to you? And, conversely, is being selfless being able to put yourself in others' shoes so that you are less hypocritical?

This is kinda dead end question.

To define "selfless acts" as you said Solveig needs an external  "rational outsider".He/She will define "Selfless acts" based on their goggles they're wearing at the time of analysis. During our discussion, point of my friend was, being a "selfless" is more of internal than external. It's like "forgetting one's self". Detaching oneself with all rationality intact for one's belief .  I guess it's very very tough. I turned to nature at last, i have found it selfless, a bit.

By hypocrisy, i meant Eva not to put oneself in others shoes,but showing own philosophy/beliefs to others by actions. Deep down in our heart we all know(at least i) that, i don't follow always what i believe. i do lapse sometimes, but still when it comes to others i pretend to be true to myself and Guru of my philosophy. Regarding your questions Eva, it honestly depends on what you believe as a Selfish and Selfless. I will refrain, else this will be the latest example of my hypocrisy :D..

thanks for your posts.
cheers,hardik