Selfless, Self-centered, Self-absorbed

I was driving through L.A. the other day and the behavior of the drivers around me sparked a thought that occasionally crosses my mind. There is a very common misconception concerning selflessness and self-centeredness. The misconception is that selflessness is a desirable state of being and that self-centeredness is not, even when the terms are taken literally. It is very common to hear people promote selflessness and to criticize self-centeredness despite the fact that almost everyone is self-centered and very few people are selfless. The reality of course is that, taken literally, the reverse is true.

If you ask just about any psychiatrist/psychologist or read psychology literature you will see that the prevailing view is that it is healthy to place yourself at the center of your universe and dysfunctional to not do so – even if you are a parent. Attempting to place someone else at the center results in all sorts of psychological maladies and placing no one there is not much better. If you are not at the center of your universe, who is and why are they more important to you than yourself? The center of your universe is the only healthy place for you to be.

Selflessness, on the other hand, is a completely dysfunctional state. Think about it, if you truly achieved selflessness you would cease to exist as an individual. There would be no self to take care of, no self to feed, or clothe, or love. Psychologically, it’s a state that is impossible to be in without being damaged in some significant way. You first have to have a self before you can have self-esteem.

So you may counter that these are extremes and what is really meant is that people should be “more” selfless and “less” self-centered. The problem with this is that self-centeredness is binary, you are either at the center or you’re not. There is no reason to not always be at your own center. And as for selflessness, the stronger the sense of self we have (of our boundaries and who we are) the better and it makes no sense to diminish that by becoming more selfless.

So, if this is true, what do we do about all the a-holes out there that take advantage of other people and constantly promote themselves at the expense of others? People who have few qualms about using and abusing others for their own gain? Aren’t they too self-centered and not selfless enough? No. The answer is not to encourage everyone to become less healthy psychologically but to realize that such behavior stems from another psychological problem, narcissism -- or in terms of “self” people who are overly self-absorbed. This is a problem having to do with a lack of empathy for others: an inability to put one’s self in another's shoes. In the extreme, a person in this state is not only the center of their universe but the only one in it. They can use and abuse others because they are the only entity that is real or isn’t some type of machine. It’s as if they are in a video game where all the other characters are constructs and soulless. This is not the same as being self-centered or un-selfless. It is perfectly possible and desirable to be generous, charitable, and nurturing and have a fully developed sense of self at the center of your own universe.

The psychology surrounding being overly self-absorbed is trickier and comes into play at a more advanced level than the psychology surrounding selflessness and self-centeredness. All animals must be self-centered to survive and be healthy but as far as we know (and our knowledge is still fairly limited) only humans have any significant need for empathy. How to appropriately recognize and weigh the needs and wants of others relative to our own needs and wants is not just a mater of psychology either. It’s also a prime area of study in the fields of biology, economics, and game theory -- not to mention that it’s been an area philosophical and ethical study for the last 2200 years (since the time of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates). But what is clear is that being self-absorbed and having a lack of empathy for others is not a healthy psychological state for us humans.

So, to sum up, selfless is bad, being self-centered is good, and being overly self-absorbed is bad.

So what does this have to do with driving in L.A.? People of L.A., for your own mental health, don’t make people pass you on the right! As an exercise in developing your sense of empathy, if you’ve got someone coming up behind you and you can move over to the right to let them by, do yourself a favor psychologically and get your ass out of the way.