Why Self-Centeredness Indicates Lack of Self-Love

What leads to self-centeredness and is it all about focusing on one’s own happiness first? And, is it always wrong to make ourselves a priority? How can it be possible to love oneself and love others unconditionally at the same time?

I found it hard to love and embrace myself for years because of different reasons which made me feel “I am not good enough”, “ I deserve less”, it was very difficult for me to accept any compliment, socialize with people, had low self-esteem to the point that saying to myself “I hate you” out loud had become a habit for me when I was alone.

The biggest reason why it was so difficult for me was, I found the concept of Self-Love itself complicated.

On the one hand, often it is taught that being selfless is a virtue. To have a happy life one needs to be selfless and compromising, which sounds opposite to the idea of prioritizing oneself!

While, on the other hand, even though being self-centered is often considered as a negative trait, self-centered people are often described as people who love themselves too much.

I have seen people appreciating the idea of loving oneself, having good self-esteem, taking care of oneself, understanding one’s own self-worth, and being one’s own priority.

However, I have also observed that sometimes when we actually make a decision, either a small or a big one for our own life by prioritizing ourselves, it’s discouraged and labeled selfish.

I had a lot of questions and I thought to myself that maybe too much self-love leads to self-centeredness, and there is a thin line between them.

Still, deep inside my heart, I had a feeling there is some contrast between the two concepts and many of us are probably misinterpreting.

I searched in different dictionaries and found the first definition of self-love suggesting one’s well-being and happiness but, often the second definition is narcissism which made me more confused!

As a result, I tried to understand how a word gets into a dictionary and found out that dictionary editors pick up a word and define it based on how the word is being used by the majority of people in the world.

So, that need not mean it’s the correct definition, it just means that’s how the word is being used and perceived by majority.

After researching the topic excessively, I came to a realization that in the psychological point of view not only is self-love, not self-centeredness; sadly self-centered people are not aware of how to love themselves.

The core distinction between the two concepts is:

Self-Centeredness is about scarcity while Self-Love is about abundance.

The psychological description of Self-Centeredness involves a scarcity mindset which tends to think that whenever an individual benefits, and grows, some other person is “missing out or not succeeding”.

Consequently, this mindset makes us believe that whenever someone is enjoying and taking great pleasure, or having a favorable time, there has to be someone or queue of individuals behind them who are “missing out”, and having less favorable times.

These kinds of beliefs make individuals self-absorbed or self-centered. When this self-centeredness increases too much, it leads to Narcissism (a personality disorder).

Now, let’s try to shift this mindset by visualizing — every-time an individual benefits, grows, and has a favorable time in their life, all the people in their network are soon going to have fortunate and favorable circumstances in their life as well!

Instantly, now it feels like because of the gain, there is no one missing out and everyone is benefiting!

This shift in the mindset leads to the feeling of “abundance” and fills a person with more warmth, compassion, and love towards themselves as well as others. Doesn’t it feel very different from the scarcity mindset? This is a very healthy mentality and this mindset of abundance is exactly what self-love is all about.

Our wits are less productive when there is a feeling of lacking something.

Self-love is the elevating capacity to extend compassion, be honest, and be thoughtful to oneself by embracing oneself completely, along with the feelings of consideration, kindness, and affection for others at the same time.

The problem with mistaking Self-Love for Self-Centeredness

• Firstly, many of us are encouraged to be completely selfless, be compromising, and put ourselves last which results in putting one’s own wishes and needs aside.

The problem is when this continues for a longer period of time, often many of these individuals get taken advantage of, and are taken for granted repeatedly, these experiences gradually leads to loss of one’s self-confidence and self-worth causing in self-hate. This self-hate leads them in believing they are victims and they bring all the focus on themselves becoming self-centered.

Pouring out all the love from our hearts to others without filling and nurturing our own heart with love leads to “burn out” making one feel emotionally exhausted.

• Secondly, often when people experience a lack of love, they feel so rejected, unwanted, and empty inside that they tend to manipulate others into showing affection for them becoming self-centered.

They may see others in terms of how useful the other person can be and what can others provide them to fill the void inside them. When others disappoint them and are unable to nurture them, the self-centered ones consider them as useless.

These individuals may feel, by being self-centered they are loving themselves, and taking care of themselves, not realizing what they are practicing is completely opposite of self-love.

Image Design by Sudiya

Here are the key differences between the individuals who practice Self-Love and Self-Centeredness based on three categories:

Outlook Towards Life

Self-Love:

1. Confident even during their downfall, and are not too hard on themselves when they fail. They strongly believe that favorable circumstances and opportunities are coming along their way and they need to be open to accept them.
2. Appreciate and live in their present.
3. Capable of seeing beauty in themselves and can also see the beauty in others as well.
4. Take responsibility for their own well-being and happiness.

Self-Centeredness:

1. Never completely satisfied in any aspect of their life.
2. Give importance mainly to materialistic things, gifts, and achievements in their life and as a result, their self-esteem is very delicate.
3. Consider themselves as victims, don’t take responsibility for their well-being and happiness, and always blame other things or people.

Attitude towards others

Self-Love:

1. Encourage their support system and social circle as they understand their worth, and make others feel loved and good about themselves.
2. Have humility, are receptive to other’s feelings, have empathy, and understand other’s issues and struggles.
3. Consider everyone as equals, and don’t view anyone as inferior or superior.

Self-Centeredness:

1. Can’t tolerate and feel jealous when other’s succeed.
2. Feel superior when they accomplish something.
3. Everyone are considered as a threat because everybody is their competition and they always need to have an upper-hand over someone to feel good about themselves.
4. Believe they possess no flaws and can only be understood by people equally superior like them.
5. Consider other’s worthy when there is a chance to use them for their own gain.
6. Seek for the opportunity to dominate, control, and manipulate others.

Qualities and Expectations

Self-Love:

1. Proud of every single achievement as they are aware of their own efforts.
2. Recognize their gifts or talents without considering themselves as superior.
3. Not desperate for recognition and compliments for their accomplishments.
4. Have high self-esteem and prioritize themselves, know to set boundaries with those who don’t treat them well.
5. Accept their own flaws and uniqueness.
6. Work on the aspects of life they want to improve.

Self-Centeredness:

1. Always expect too much from others.
2. Need constant recognition, appreciation, praise, and approval from others.

The more self-centered an individual is, the more self-absorbed they are at the expense of others. This Self-Centeredness is the opposite of self-love and should not be confused with healthy Self-Love.

Image Design and Quote by Sudiya

To have a healthy mentality, it’s important to love and accept ourselves. I strongly believe that this world is not completely black or white, so what truly matters is the degree of self-love we practice in our daily lives to overcome self-centeredness in ourselves.

Shifting from scarcity to an abundance mindset takes a lot of time and effort, and that’s completely fine.

For me, practicing self-love is an ongoing work in progress. I know, I have improved a lot and I also realize, that I need to work on myself in a lot of areas too.

The three self-love practices which I found the most helpful are:

1. Surrounding myself with loving people and removing (or having strong boundaries with) people showing toxic behavior.

2. Identifying, understanding, and working towards my own priorities and goals without comparing myself with others at all.

3. Appreciating all my little achievements as well as appreciating others immediately the moment I notice something good in them.

I hope everyone struggling with self-love finds these practices helpful too.

“Never look up to anyone — never look down on anyone. Look at everything the way it is.”- Sadhguru

As Sadhguru says, it’s all about seeing and accepting everything and everybody the way they actually are. After all, each and every person on this planet is just trying to achieve happiness and harmony.

And, this shift in the mentality from scarcity to abundance is the key to true happiness.

I hope you’ll always remember things get better, you are important, you deserve your own love, you don’t need anyone else to complete you, and you are whole by yourself. Be loving!

References:

1. https://medium.com/r/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthriveglobal.com%2Fstories%2Fselfish-vs-self-love%2F
2. https://www.lifehack.org/596475/how-we-are-confusing-self-love-with-narcissism-in-this-generation
3. https://wellnessworks.in/what-you-feel-is-self-love-or-selfish-wellnessworks/
4. https://nsightrecovery.com/does-having-self-esteem-make-me-selfish/
5. http://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/malinak.pdf

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