There have been two notable times in the recent past when a moment of realization occurred to make me think, "Woah! I'm so selfish!" and then I feel bad and vow that I will make real adjustments to be more compassionate to others and to stop thinking about my damn self for like 5 minutes.
The first time I had this realization, I was chilling post hot yoga thinking about how much my ass just got kicked and seriously wondering how my body can produce that much sweat. Amid these existential thoughts, I suddenly got body checked by a new thought: STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF! Spread the love to others girlfriend, because this all you all the time is getting a little boring. So then I obviously called my mom and relayed to her this story and happily proclaimed "Ok, I'm going to focus on other people now. I'll call you back when I'm Mother Theresa." Then I probably went back to wondering how many calories I had just burned in that yoga class and if people would notice if I didn't wash my hair...
The other time I got slapped in the face by my own selfishness was on the day the DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) was ruled on. For those of you who don't know, this was a super exciting time and a really historic day. SCOTUS had basically said, yes! marry who you want. One step closer to free love and equality. Awesome, right? And I was excited! This was good. I want everyone to be happy! Now even more people can have weddings that I'm jealous of and that I try not to be bitter about.
I get into work that day and log onto gchat and start CHATTING with friends. It's lovely, everyone is all OMG yes the Supreme Court is on the right side of history etc. and I'm like right on! Then I catch a glimpse of my reflection in my computer screen and gasp! My hair, it's terrible. That decision I made not to wash my hair was a bad one (the amount of internal dialogue I have with myself on if I should wash my hair or not is at astoundingly high levels). Clearly, I should have washed it because I was the definition of a bad hair day. I immediately gchat my friend and say something along the lines of: "TERRIBLE HAIR DAY IS ME RIGHT NOW. UGH. LIFE." Then three seconds later my brain wakes up and realizes: Shit you're selfish. Your mind should be on yay gay marriage. And it totally should have been because it would have been a better reflection of what I cared about in that moment. I just got sidetracked.
And this was the second time of late I realized that I have the tendency to ere on the side of self-involvement.
I swear I want to be better and less all me all the time, but I can't truthfully sit here and write to you that since these two instances I haven't thought about myself the majority of the time. Blah, lame I know. But, I CAN say that I'm trying and I think there has been some marked improvements.
It's hard not to think of yourself all the time, especially when things are going pretty ok in your life. You have the time, the capacity and the resources to really dig deep and focus on me time. And our culture puts a lot of emphasis on self-improvement, on what YOU can do to make YOURSELF better. It's"me" and "I" all day errday. Also, it's pretty fun to think about yourself all the time. I've got no husband (womp womp), I've got no kids, I've got me myself and I. This environment is ripe with the opportunity to turn inward and be all consumed with yourself. Maybe some people are more predisposed to be selfish or adversely selfless (what a concept!), but I think the issue of self involvement is something that most people could inspect in their lives and see if some improvements could be made.
A lot of the changes I've tried to start putting into play daily are pretty contingent on generally just being a nicer person. Smiling at people more, saying thank you genuinely and making eye contact when you say it, giving up my seat on the metro, consciously being the first to say "how are YOU?". Being aware is one of the biggest steps to making positive changes in your life, as I've been led to believe by some pretty epic inspirational quotes (a little bit of an obsession of mine). So when I catch myself being consumed by petty thoughts that revolve only around myself, I take a deep breath and shift my focus to something else or someone else.
It sounds corny, but almost every morning I try to set an intention of being a bright, sparkly light to happiness for other people during that day. Do I achieve that goal a lot of the time? Hell no. Am I a lousy person a lot of the time? Yeah, probably. Seriously, just ask my mom. She talks to me everyday and most times gets off the phone thinking SPAWN OF SATAN! But the point here is that I try. And if trying gets me inches closer to success of being less selfish and more compassionate towards others, doesn't that basically equate to me hitting a life homerun? AGAIN WITH ME THE ME TALK!
The takeaway point is to simply make a commitment to be nicer, more compassionate and less self involved in the hopes that you can make someone's day out there. Don't stop being you, just stop thinking about you so much. And by you, I mean me because you all are perfect and awesome.
