Augmented Selfishness

I remember a line from a Bill Cosby monologue, it was regarding a roommate in college thinking that alcohol accentuates his personality.  To which Cosby quips, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"

We all have places in our soul, our maturity, where we are stuck on Selfish.  I have a whole pageful of annoying habits, quirks, and behaviors that I have identified that I would like to be rid of for good.  I am sure others that know me well could add another page to that list. 

One of my few shows I watch on TV is Big Bang Theory, which is about a group of highly intelligent, socially inept science nerds.  The total oblivion that the characters have to social cues is hilarious and the basis for the whole show. Perhaps it is so funny because we can relate, we just can't see it from inside our world.

Seeing ourselves are we truly are is complicated because we have created filtered lenses which we see the world and our place in it. I will dig there at a later time, right now let's focus on Selfish.  A friend tells me that when we bypass a lesson that we need to learn, circumstances appear, again and again, until we face that lesson and pass the test.  Let's say that the lesson is how to get along with others, or how to handle money or how to discipline your children; you know the subject is unavoidable yet we will blame others and take shortcuts never making a disciplined effort to address our shortcomings.  The pain will only increase for ourselves and the people around us until we are proactive in meeting our test. 

Step one in identifying selfishness is this, we need to lay bare our self-centric behavior.  Maybe you need an inventory of your shortcomings.  Not so you can flog yourself, but so that you can begin the work we would all rather avoid.

If you would be so vulnerable, perhaps after you have done your inventory, you might post a few things you discovered.  You might find you are not alone...