"Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.”
- Todd Solondz
When is the last time you volunteered for the pure sake of changing someone’s life? Not that time you volunteered because it was required for a class, or because your mom made you lend her a hand, or even because everyone in your club was doing it. Think of that last time you volunteered because you only wanted to make a difference. Can you even name a single time? I’ve come to notice we live in a generation where we think so little about other people. It’s like we’ve forgotten that the world doesn’t simply revolve around us and the little globe of our own lives.
And it isn’t solely in how we don’t put ourselves out there to better the lives of others, but how we feel the need to project how great our lives are to everyone else. Whether it’s a new selfie on Instagram or a post about your most recent accomplishment on Facebook, we get high off of how many people are ‘liking’ what it is we’ve done and the comments of praise they leave congratulating us. It’s like there is no better feeling that making a new record of likes on something you’ve post it, and in a way it’s something that every one of us is guilty of. Every action we take is done with the thought of “wow, I can’t wait to see the amount of likes I’m going to get on this”. We no longer take in moments for the sake of the moment, but instead for the sake of the reaction we’re going to get from everybody else.
Nothing is ever done for the benefit of anybody else except ourselves now. We’ve lost sight of how to be compassionate and have a lack of empathy for others. Our whole lives have suddenly become a broadcast just because we want other people to notice us. Apps like Twitter are used so people can be updated on every little thing we think or are doing, and for what reason? People seem to believe that by broadcasting their every thought that people seem to want to listen or they care, when in reality we’re all only posting because it seems to make us feel better about ourselves. As if somebody somewhere truly cares that you had Apple Jacks instead of Fruit Loops for breakfast.
So when did we decide to let what other people think define us? When did we forget that we should define ourselves? With the immediate access to the world outside of us, it’s so easy to get wrapped up with what everybody else thinks. It’s like we believe their opinions are a reflection of ourselves, so we strive to be whatever it is we think the world wants us to be. Each post, picture, and tweet is made in order to gain attention, and the more attention we have, the more important we seem to feel. And unless we find a way to detach ourselves from this idea, modern society is only going to continue to be so self-obsessed and narcissistic.
