This is more of a rant than an actual newsletter, but increasingly the stories I am hearing from patients tells me there is a plague of narcissism sweeping our country. It is not that there has not been a generous load of narcissism within certain sectors of our society forever (like politics), but there seems to have been a trickle down effect in place. It is cropping up everywhere. My concern is that if this trend continues, it will cripple us.
This country was built on a set of ethics and beliefs that, for the most part, worked. They had some significant failings, but as far as building a strong country is concerned, they got the job done. The central key belief was in the value of hard work. When this value was coupled with a social structure that allowed for success from any level of society it produced the kind of
motivation that bred brilliance and excellence. America was the shining opportunity that immigrants from heavily classed restrictive societies needed to inspire the positive growth and change that made our country great. Waves of social change expanded those opportunities to every member of our society. But hard work seems to have run its course as the means to achieve success. The new motto is entitlement is our way to success.
It does not take more than four seconds of thought to see that this paradigm for success is doomed to failure. It is based on the fairy godmother approach to reality. It relies on the illusion that the goods and services we desire spring from some magic hat somewhere. We figure we are entitled to this abundant magical outflow from this magic hat. The problem is there is no such thing as a magic hat that grants us our wishes. Any and every good or service we desire
comes from other people that want goods and services as much as we do. Everyone has needs and wants just like us. This simple awareness seems to have slipped out of the general consciousness and been replaced by the lie that the world is full of everything everyone wants and we should get what we want just because we want it.
I call this the plague of narcissism – the belief that we should get whatever we want because we want it,including, everyone else should be the way we want just because we want it. We don’t consciously say out loud that we are more important than everyone else, but our beliefs about our entitlements scream this out. How? If we were to actually get whatever we wanted without having to give back something of equal or greater value, then we have effectively ripped off whomever we got it from. That says we believe our wants are more important than the wants and needs of the person that supplied what we want. We
dance around this truth with the false story that what we want comes from that magic hat instead of another actual person with needs like us. We make up provider stories like “the government”, “big business”, “the rich”, and other impersonal names for our magic hat. The reality is that each of these are just people like you and me. This onslaught of narcissism is really just a massive failure to grow up. Dependent babies in grown up bodies are now becoming the norm. As babies we have to believe in magic and parents that will meet our needs without us having to return equal value, because we don’t have the ability to respond in kind. We are supposed to grow out of that illusion. That does not seem to be happening anymore.
This plague first came to my attention with the antics of the boomer II generation – the “me” generation – those that reached their teens in the 70’s. Sociologists actually use the narcissistic term to describe this generation. Following them came the Generation X – the lost generation. Both of these generations missed out on the message that hard work and boldness could give you the life you desire. They lost faith in the system not realizing that they are the system. Without faith and belief that your efforts will gain you the rewards you desire, you are left in the dependent space of a child looking for some other way to get your needs met. The positive financial flow of the times kept things afloat for a while, but now the strain of too many people competing for the same pile of limited resources is producing a nasty plague of angry entitlement. People feel actually justified demanding something for nothing – that those who work for a living should not have more than those who merely want for a living.
How is this showing up? One patient told me about her church that opened its doors to feed and provide shelter for the homeless. Being a place of worship the homeless were told that they could not smoke or drink on the premises nor bring in their dogs into the church. The response was not gratitude for the help offered but outrage that they were not being allowed to do whatever they wanted to do. That is how self centered folks have become – believing that they are entitled to do what ever they want whenever they want to do it. We see this in the huge mounds of trash people leave in our parks. How often have you had to slam on your breaks while driving because some clown figures that cutting in front of you will get them to their destination half a second sooner? My personal peeve is all the folks with absolutely no difficulty walking taking the handicapped parking spaces so they can avoid walking a few extra feet. Folks like me with Ellen, that have to have that extra space beside the car to get a wheelchair in have no place to park. I am even hearing stories that breaking and entering in order to squat in a space that you have no “right” to is being supported by the city. Our government is promoting this ridiculous behavior. This is not going to turn out well.
Life requires win-win exchange to produce sustainable existence. The instant you allow a something-for-nothing mindset to persist, you start to deplete your resources. People quickly convert to the side that is getting their needs met without having to participate. It only makes sense – why work to produce when you can get what you need for nothing? In short order there are no more producers and that means no more products or services. The abundance created by mutual exchange turns into the desolation of lack.
What created all this? There are probably lots of reasons I am unaware of, but some of this is coming from good intentions – the kind that pave the road to hell. Trying to support lies like “life should be fair” and “everyone deserves an equal opportunity” are good intentions that have produced the exact opposite of their intentions. Life is completely fair all the time, but it is rarely the way you want it to be. Outcome is a product of input. Equal opportunity requires the equal opportunity to fail. People that complain life is not fair are really saying that they want a particular outcome without having to put in the same input. A perfect example is the complete failure of the “self esteem” movement in schools. Studies showed that kids with high self esteem did much better in life than those without self esteem. So schools have tried to do away with anything that might decrease a child’s self esteem, like challenges they might fail at. Now you get ribbons for showing up at events, instead of for how much skill you have. The reality is this has destroyed
kids self esteem because esteem is built out of overcoming challenges you might fail at. Removing failure has also removed success at overcoming failures. Instead it has simply built an expectation of reward without having to build any skills that actually give you value in life.
Now these kids are out on the streets, at least those that make it out of their parent’s basements. They have no clue about what it takes to be a success at life. They have been programmed to expect excellent outcomes just because they are able to suck in air and take up space. We have taught them this by supporting these silly beliefs. I wish I could say that we could turn this all around by changing our beliefs to line up with reality, but I feel we have already gone way past that point. We can sound the warning bell and teach a different way, but the
momentum of the last 50 years is going to play out. We are not the first civilization to have gone down this road. The coming years are going to be interesting.
Good luck,
David