This verse gets misread constantly, usually into something unhealthy. In humility consider others more important than yourselves.
People hear an instruction to think poorly of themselves. That is not what is being asked, and the second half makes it clear. Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Not instead of. Also.
So your interests are still there. You are permitted to have them. What changes is that they stop being the only thing in view.
That is a much more practical instruction than self erasure, and considerably harder. Self erasure can be performed. Genuinely holding someone else’s situation in mind while your own is pressing requires actual attention.
Paul names the alternative too: selfish ambition and empty pride. Both are about audience. Both are exhausting.
One concrete version of this today. Ask someone a second question about their thing before returning to yours.
