The rampant taking and posting
of “selfies” and the extensive sharing of personal information on Facebook are
two of the best examples of what has become a national obsession with
ourselves. We have become a nation of
people in love with ourselves, one in which narcissism is on the rise among our
young people, with one study by Twenge, Campbell, and Gentile finding that
there has been a 30% slant toward narcissistic attitudes among students in the
United States and 1 in 4 respondents on a national survey identifying
themselves as narcissistic. What is
narcissism? The Oxford English
Dictionary defines it as “excessive self-love or vanity; self-admiration,
self-centeredness.”
Some folks say this this is the
result of the self-esteem culture that has been so pervasive in the past few
decades, and that self-confidence, believing in yourself, and loving oneself
leads to success and improved lives. But
the reality, according to numerous research studies is that the effect it has
is actually quite small. All of the
self-help books and focus on bettering yourself may in fact have had more
negative consequences than positive ones.
Another factor is that for a
couple of generations, children have been raised to believe that they are
someone special, which in the end often distorts the reality that they end up living
and a false sense of who they are.
According to professionals, self-love is incomplete and immature as a
solo attribute, and self-love without empathy is lopsided and leads to both
arrogance and misery. The “Hey! Look at me!” mentality of selfies and
Facebook posts are cries for attention that are surface level pleas for
attention. Once they figure out that
people do not really care about that, people may go to greater extremes to get
that attention, or go in another direction and struggle with a lack of personal
fulfillment.
In many ways this focus on
ourselves has manifested itself in the actions of people where one has to question
whether or not we truly care about other people in our country. One can look at different groups who have had
political influence and see their motives as examples of self-interest at the
expense of the greater good. Policies
favoring big business and individuals over social welfare seem more
common. Look at Nebraska where two
recently elected Senators voted for the Keystone pipeline despite overwhelming
opposition by the citizens of the state.
Both Senators accepted huge donations from the Koch brothers to advance
their business concerns. For generations
many people have given of themselves for the greater good of a community, yet
today in many places there is not sense of community. People live in a town but do not engage in
any meaningful way, choosing to do their own thing.
This obviously does not apply to
all, and we do see quite a few kids that are not “caught up in themselves” or
as I like to say, “staring in their own soap opera!” The reality is that while we celebrate
successful people, more often than not, that success is dependent on other
people. Perhaps rather than focusing
on the selfie, we need to be collecting those pictures of others who help us be
the people we need to be. Maybe we
shouldn’t be so caught up on wanting people to know what we do every day, and
rather get to know others better so we can work together to better the lives of
all.
