“What?! What’s wrong with this guy?” If you felt this way when you read my opening sentence, then yes, trying to be more “self-centered” could be particularly beneficial for you. Most of us worry about other people’s feelings too much. And that can be a problem for us.
It is really important to be considerate and avoid unnecessarily hurting other people. I don’t disagree with that at all. If you don’t care about this basic part on human interaction, you are probably considered rude, unlikable, immature, or something like that, and people don’t want to hang out with you.
The problem, however, is that you may tend to care about others’ needs more than your own, and end up sacrificing yourself for them. For example, you want to avoid greasy food because your stomach is uncomfortable. But when your friend says, “Let’s get a chili cheeseburger and fries at the burger stand,” you may just respond, “Okay.” Or, you have some project to submit tomorrow, and your mom calls you to talk for a long time about non-urgent matters. You want to but can’t hang up and end up staying up until late. Another example could be that you are hanging out in a small group. You are listening to them chatting while smiling, although you are not enjoying it at all…
Very sweet and kind of you, but you are not sweet or kind to yourself. Why do you have to take care of others’ needs more than your own? Have you ever really thought about it? It appears that lots of people have never questioned such behavior. What makes you do that? Why would you ignore yourself? Why do you have to be so “nice?” Let’s think about it.
In the next post, I will share my thoughts about this tendency.
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