Egomaniac pros/cons

  • Audio Version at the end.

I used to feel like I couldn’t connect with people, I could spend hours hanging out with a group and have had zero meaningful or interesting conversations. Now I realise having a conversation with someone while you give them your full attention completely changes the way an interaction feels.

Previously I was an egomaniac. I was only concerned with topics I had previously deemed interesting and didn’t particularly care about the lives of people around me. This state of mind has benefits but these come with consequences.

Benefits

The largest benefit I found with this sense of entitlement, my drive and motivation increased. Considering yourself, your life and your mission to have more importance than others is a useful way to reduce procrastination. Most of the people I know and meet do not have passion for their lives. They are content to work for the man and spend their pay checks on instant gratification, even if they want more than that. Even though I recognize this, the mind set is still dangerously contagious and tempting.

Being an egomaniac is a convenient way to leverage yourself out of this. By feeling that I am more important and I am to achieve more than the average person, it became a lot easier to spend my time selectively. The way I summed this up in my mind, is simply to not hang out with people because I am bored. There needs to be purpose to the time spent.

Negatives

Consequently, you lose friends. Friendships take maintenance and if you don’t seek to spend time with people, they will not seek to spend time with you. Your outer circle gets smaller and you find yourself with only a few people you actually want to hang out with.

This can lead to a feeling of loneliness. Even if all the friendships were superficial, having consistent contact with people provides a lot of stimulation and a feeling of being ‘liked’ or ‘wanted’.

This feeling of egomania was close to putting your phone on airplane mode, permanently. Even spending time with the people I value most sometimes became merely a means to an end to achieve the stimulation and social recognition I still craved.

Solution

The egomaniac state of mind was a valuable experience and forced me to progress on activities I had only dreamed of. However, it is not sustainable or conducive to happiness and satisfaction in life.

Eventually I understood that while in this state of mind I valued spending time with those close to me, because I know what their dreams are. I understand them well and know what they would love to achieve. For this reason it is easy to have conversations that ignite passion within me, and hopefully them.

The solution is to find that passion and dream within everyone you know. For people to start talking about what they really want, a feeling of being understood is necessary. It sounds cheesy, but truly listen with your whole body. Focus on them from your chest to your arms and fill your body with what they are saying. People react to this and this is how I have turned relationships that I considered a burden to a valuable bonding experience that helps me to grow.

Everyone is passionate about something and has something interesting to teach about their favourite topics. It is interesting and fun to truly understand people’s wants and dreams and who they really are.

Listen to it here

Please comment any thoughts this provoked within you.