Narcissism: Self-Esteem Gone Wild
In It’s Not a Life Sentence, I touch on the self-esteem movement which, even in its infancy, seemed to be spawning a generation who felt pretty good about themselves whether they’d achieved anything of substance or not. Now, Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, both Ph. D’s and the authors of The Narcissism Epidemic, see a connection between that inflated self-esteem and, among other things, our current economic collapse.
Encouraged as children to believe they’re unique and special just by virtue of being, many young adults developed an exaggerated sense of entitlement which fed the frenzied overspending now drowning them in debt, Twenge and Campbell say.
The United States, they declare, is awash in an epidemic of narcissism which has affected all of us as our society increasingly emphasizes wealth, appearance, and celebrity. And as a series of economic woes have swept over the nation, the innocent, those who attempted to live within their means, save for emergencies, and build a retirement fund, have been damaged right along with the guilty.
Look around you. Do you know someone with narcissistic tendencies? Do you have those tendencies yourself? Are you influenced by others who do?
Here are some of the traits a narcissist might display:
- a grandiose sense of importance and a need for recognition not warranted by accomplishment
- preoccupation with fantasies of success, power, brilliance, or beauty
- a belief that he or she is unique and can only be appreciated by other special or high-status people
- a need for admiration
- unreasonable expectations of special treatment
- exploitative treatment of others
- lack of empathy
- envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her
- arrogant behavior and attitude
If this sounds like you, it might be time to reassess and see whether your life is taking you where you want to go.
One Wrong Move, the Sequel
In my last blog (much belated, written in December of 2008 and posted in early April) I wrote about my ill-fated journey up—and then quite abruptly—down a stepladder. The broken leg resulting from the excursion required surgery and a four-day hospital stay. There, I learned, it’s easy to forget recent lessons learned.
“I can get into the bathroom on my own with this handy-dandy walker,” I told myself in the middle of the night. No need for an escort. Armed with self-confidence, off I went. All went well until my good leg flew out from under me. Forbidden by my doctor to put any weight on my damaged extremity, I gave myself over to gravity once more, attempting to break my fall by crashing backwards on my hand. What I broke was not my fall, but my wrist.
It turns out that when you have a broken leg and a broken wrist, both on your dominant side, you’re in need of some serious help. You can hobble around using an unhappy device called a “platform walker” and make coffee—albeit clumsily—and you can pour the coffee into a cup. But you can’t take it anywhere, both hands being required to get you from Point A to Point B.
It was my good fortunate to have a cheerful, willing caregiver in the person of Carmen, who had helped care for my husband the last few years of his life.
Soon, I learned a lesson, perhaps the one my optimistic friend had predicted about the time I wrote the “Oops! One Wrong Move” blog. The lesson was how easy it is to slip into dependency, even for the fiercely independent. When you’re hurt and you have capable, caring help, dependency is positively seductive.
And thus it was that I discovered, though I had chafed at the restrictions and inactivity of my long recuperation, getting back to real life has required great effort and a huge expenditure of will power. This has been one of those “walking in the other guy’s moccasins” moments.
Now, it’s back to the real world for me.
