Keeping Perspective

Are You Self-Centered?

No one likes to think of themselves as self-centered, but to a degree we all are. How can we not be? The problem lies when we become too self-centered and thus lose perspective. Now I want to be clear that self-centered does not equate selfishness. Someone could be very giving and also be self-centered. By self-centered I mean that we struggle with being objective or understanding the view points of others. So how do we know when we've become maybe a bit too self-absorbed and as such have lost perspective? It's a hard thing to admit, so here are some signs:

We think everyone is out to get us: While there are a handful of people out there who try to sabotage others, this is not something the average person is interested in spending their time on. If someone gives us the cold shoulder it might not even have anything to do with us. Maybe they just have something else on their mind.

Little things can throw our whole day off: Are little things like oversleeping or spilling coffee in the car enough to ruin our mood? If the answer is "yes" then it's time to take a step back. While it's normal to get upset for a minute when something like this happens, we're not doing ourselves any favors if we carry these things around all day.

Everyone knows everything about you, but you don't know what's going on with everyone else: So the coffee spilled in the car and then we went and told everyone in the office about it. One by one each of our co-workers heard "guess what happened to me this morning!" Later while sitting at our desk we hear that someone in our office just found out they need surgery or that someone's spouse is leaving them. If we get too caught up in our own stories we might not realize the difficulties also being faced by those around us.

We don't pay attention to the world around us: It's easy to lose perspective when we don't pay attention to the world around us. Even just listening to the news on the radio on the way into work or taking a look at the headlines each day can go a long way. When we begin to understand the amount of real struggle that exists in the world, spilled coffee won't seem like such a big deal.

Not having perspective is a big problem for many of us and it most certainly inhibits happiness, success and our ability to relate to others. If we're always walking around feeling sorry for ourselves, talking about our problems and acting like martyrs it's going to turn people off and limit our ability to appreciate what is going well in our lives.