Do you believe that youre self-centred? Or are you reading this to reassure yourself that youre not? Because we all know that being self-centred is bad, right? Not that weve established exactly what we think the term means. Maybe we dont even share the same definition. Maybe, its the self part that triggers our value judgement. Its like a trainer on a course I attended recently, who said that self-love made people unpleasant, even damaging, to be around. When I challenged her, she admitted that people who truly loved themselves first would be loving and supportive towards other people, whereas self-obsessed people behave in a thoughtless, careless fashion. Shed just used the phrase self-love as a convenient shorthand. Its the self word that tends to provoke the knee-jerk reaction. We treat self in combination with any other word as a synonym of selfish and we all know, from childhood on, that selfishness is a mortal sin. So self-centredness must be a deplorable shortcoming too, mustnt it? Actually, it depends. If a person truly believes that he, or she, is the centre of the entire universe and treats everyone else as peripheral, insignificant beings, then, yes, that is pretty deplorable. But if a person places themselves at the centre of their own world that is a very different matter. Where else should they be, after all? If they dont fill the space at the centre of their world, someone else will just muscle in and fill it for them. Someone else, in other words, will colonise their centre. Weve all seen it done often enough; all come across those generous, shadowy creatures who spend their whole life falling over themselves for the other people who shamelessly colonise their centre. They meet with precious little appreciation for all the effort they expend. The technical term for these people is doormats. They end up being self-sacrificing (theres much less of a stigma attached to that phrase) whether they want to or not, because they cant help themselves. On the other hand, the people who honour their own self, by setting it at the centre of their world, enjoy personal empowerment. They can set the boundaries around their self and their world as close, or as far away, from their centre as they see fit at any given moment. Their world is spacious enough to incorporate anyone they choose. And because they are in a state of empowerment they can honour all those whom they share their world with, even as they honour themselves. My definition of healthy self-centredness is that it is the precondition of a respectful relationship between adults. It is not to be confused with the infantile clamouring for attention and instant satisfaction of every need, however unreasonable. Mature self-centredness is about creating win-win situations. When you start to look at it that way, I wonder, how self-centred are you really? And how self-centred do you want to be? Can you see your way to making it your New Years resolution for 2006 to become more self-centred? (C) 2005 Annie Kaszina |
