When I was around 10 or 11 years old, I remember approaching my mom with a doll in my arms and asking her if she thought I’d be a good mother someday. Her response was a flat-out no. According to her, I was too selfish to be a good mom. Now, before you get the wrong impression about my mother, let me just first say that she was about 8 or 9 months pregnant at the time, I’d gotten on her last nerve that particular day, she’d been arguing with my step-father earlier and she’s not perfect. My mom has always been my best friend and fiercest advocate and I can count on one hand the times where she missed the good parenting mark in making such a cutting statement toward me. I’ve had a few missteps as a mom too (haven’t we all?), so I’ve never held that statement against her.
I’ve also never forgotten it.
Mom Wasn’t the Last Person to Be So Brutally Honest With Me
A few years ago, during a calm, ordinary and unrelated discussion with my husband, in the process of making some other point, he casually characterized me as selfish. This isn’t the first time he’d uttered those words to me, either. But every other time had been during an argument and so I never took it too much to heart.
I don’t see myself as selfish, in fact I see myself as being quite charitable. I volunteer, I tithe, I’ve given a lot of money to people in need and I try to be there when loved ones need me. So the few times he’d called me selfish before that day, I’d chalked his words up to a mix of anger and bad communication. Perhaps even him misunderstanding the difference between being selfish and self-centered. On that day, though, I questioned him about why he characterized me in that way. He tried to backtrack and clean it up a little, but it stuck with me and caused me to really question myself and pay closer attention to my interactions with others.
Selfish Vs. Self-Centered
Long ago, I’d read somewhere about self-centered people NOT being selfish, but that they simply know how to prioritize their own needs and wants. Don’t recall where I read it, but I’d accepted the idea that self-centered people can be very giving, but that we’re not doormats and we have no qualms about saying no, which can rub people the wrong way. I’d accepted that definition and embraced the fact that I was a self-centered person who, to those who didn’t know the difference, could appear to be selfish, but that I really was just mostly misunderstood.
When You Hear Something Enough Times…
Having really examined myself, though– especially through the eyes of those I care about– I have come to realize that I do have some verrrrrry selfish tendencies. As much as I can be charitable with my time, money and energy, I can also be unnecessarily stingy about these same things. In realizing this, I have to check myself on a daily– sometimes hourly– basis to question whether I’m being selfish and if I can open myself to being more considerate of others in those moments.
I’m really trying to be more conscious of other people’s needs and desires these days. Through it all, I’m discovering that I do have a lot more to give and that I have a tendency to shut down too early because I favor the buffer of my comfort zone a little more than I sometimes should. Some would still probably call this self-centered, but I know within myself when to withdraw or say no and when I am merely being selfish and shutting myself down simply because I want to and it suits me.
Such has been an eye-opening journey for me and one that I’m happy to take. Had my mom not given me that bullseye truth decades ago, it probably wouldn’t have resonated with me when I heard the same words so plainly stated by my husband as an adult. Random people in between those incidents may have mentioned it, but these people didn’t know me as intimately as my mom and husband do, so they never caused me to look inward. Sometimes it takes those closest to you to pull your coattail on key character observations and I’m so grateful my loved ones did. I’m also glad I listened. I’m working on becoming a better, more giving person and I couldn’t have done it without them!
Talk to Me
Do you think there’s a difference between being selfish and self-centered? Can you define a clear difference between the two? Has someone close to you ever sincerely tapped you about a flaw in your character? How did you you respond? Let’s talk about it in the comments below or tag me @lalalivesonline on Twitter and Instagram and share your thoughts with me there.
