The Bondage of Self-Absorption

For a long time, I was a victim of the delusion that if I just knew myself better and set up my life in a way that was best for me, that I could feel good. I just wanted to feel good. I didn’t realize that this was self-absorption, plain and simple. We generally think of self-absorption as someone who is “full of themselves,” in that they sit around talking about how great they are. They are full of pride. But that’s not how self-absorption usually plays out.

It's often as subtle as it was for me. I simply prioritized feeling good over basically everything else. I was in constant consideration of how people, places, and situations were making me feel. My internal dialogue was always about me. How was this activity making me feel? How was this friend making me feel? How was this boyfriend making me feel? How was this party making me feel? How were my habits making me feel? How was the organization of my house making me feel? How was this lunch making me feel? I was lost in it. I thought that I had first and last say in what was best for me. I thought that the world owed me the ability to make myself have good feelings.

The world doesn’t owe me good feelings. More than that, I confused the ends with the means. I sought comfort rather than character building. I sought a good feeling rather than God’s will. The next right decision was the one that I had calculated would make me feel the best. I was absorbed with myself.

Moreover, the craziest aspect of self-absorption is the fact that being self-absorbed does not require thinking highly of yourself. I was just as self-absorbed when I was thinking about what I had done and accomplished and how it made me feel as when I was angry, anxious, or in despair, upset with what I perceived to be the world not going my way and how exactly it should have gone.

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