As I was teaching a social networking class in Atlanta yesterday, a valid point was made by a very successful author, that Twitter seems so…well, let me just spit it out…so…narcissistic.

I continue to hear this comment from highly intelligent people who feel a deep resistance to Twitter—from record label executives and pastors, to artists and authors.

It seems as if a fine line separates narcissism and selflessness even though in reality they are antonyms and chasms apart.

Or are they?

Is it possible that in being ourselves we are in fact at our most selfless.

Here are Four Distinctions Between Narcissism and Selflessness

1.) “Couching Your Terms.” My life coach after hearing a recounting of my life story in a gathering of extremely successful businessmen, asked me why, after four years of working together on a weekly basis, did he hear so many aspects of my life of which he was completely unaware. As we pushed into this, we realized that I tend to “couch my terms” when I am around people whom I feel my true life story would intimidate. Because of the success of the men around me that day, I felt the freedom to be who I truly was.

He challenged me to reconsider “couching my terms.” Could it be, he asked, the real me who gives all of who I really am without holding back will only intimidate people when intimidation is needed? Could it be that intimidation could possibly lead to introspection and quite possibly to inspiration?

He helped me realize that “couching my terms,” (i.e. holding back the complete truth about myself) was not selflessness, on the contrary it was selfish.

2.) We need each other’s uniquenesses in order to fully be ourselves. Ayn Rand, an author who wields profound influence in my life, penned a short novel called Anthem. It is written as the diary of a young man, Equality 7-2521, living in a future in which people have lost all knowledge of individualism, to the point of not even knowing words like I or mine. Everyone lives and works in collective groups, with all aspects of daily life dictated by councils — the Council of Vocations, the Council of Scholars, etc.

When he is assigned to a menial job cleaning the streets, he rebels against collectivism by conducting secret scientific research, which eventually leads him to re-create electric light. When he presents his discovery to the Council of Scholars, they condemn him for daring to act as an individual and threaten to destroy his creation. He flees into the Uncharted Forest. He is joined there by his love, a girl called Liberty 5-3000.

They come across an ancient house, a relic of the Unmentionable Times before collectivism. There they rediscover the lost language of the self. They rename themselves Prometheus and Gaea (after the ancient Greek myths), and Prometheus vows to use his new knowledge to build a society based on individual freedom.

3.) None of us are smarter than all of us. If we do not freely share our knowledge, others suffer. Twitter is the ultimate intelligence machine, and as we all contribute what is uniquely ours, the world becomes a better place.

4.) Understand the difference between self-absorption and selflessness. Self-absorption is the preoccupation with oneself to the exclusion of others or the outside world. Selflessness is having little or no concern for oneself, but rather as Coleridge writes, “devoted to others’ welfare or interest.”

I suppose the bottom line to the fine line is motive.

What is our reason for Twitter, or for that matter, for social networking, for community and for life?

Is it self-serving, self-absorbed and socialistic?

Or is it selflessness, truly being who we are, and freedom?

Do you dare weigh in on this?

If so, for God’s sake, don’t “couch your terms!”