Selfish – egocentric – social distancing

I had a meeting three weeks ago with one of my former undergraduate students Carolina, who now works with me on blended learning and learning design. I asked her how she was being affected by the move to social distancing in Vancouver and across the world. It led us to talking about how fear was creeping into our daily thoughts with the realization of the severity of the global Covid-19 situation. The discussion focused on whether it is right to be thinking of our own well-being when there are so many who are suffering? Is it selfish to feel that your personal freedom and daily routine is being compromised? I shared with Carolina a thought process that I have been processing for a number of months now in my own journey into discovering self-worth and self-love. I share this sequence of thought with you now and link to my observations of Covid-19 behaviour.

 

It starts with a question and a task: Can you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “I am loved, I am worthy of love and I love me”, without feeling ridiculous or self-conscious? Until recent months there is no possibility that I would have been able to do this. I often looked in the mirror and told myself I was stupid, that I was ugly, that I was fat, that I was not enough, but I never told myself that I loved me. Now I do it every day, and it is not weird or crazy; it is healthy, necessary and ultimately the most important relationship I will have in my life – the one I have with myself. Recently a dear friend told me of a comment someone we knew years ago in university made, which was something along the lines of, “you are only worth how people see you”; this phrase is exactly the opposite of how we should be! In fact, we should be reflecting out to the world who we want to be seen as, and this can only start when we go deep within and create that deep bond with ourselves. In doing this we are then not looking for validation in our actions or choices, but rather we doing them from a place of self-choice.

What I see as this place of self-choice, self-action and ultimately self-love is what I term being selfish. I am going to nerd out a little here on the origins of the word selfish, which did not enter the English language until the 17^th century when it is believed to have been introduced by a Presbyterian archbishop around the idea of hording money. As to why this discovery is so fascinating for me, one of my favourite essays I wrote in my undergraduate degree was on the emergence of capitalism from the protestant ethos. The essay was based on an argument that Weber made in his book The Protestant Ethos and the Spirit of Capitalism. The word selfish has no origins in Greek or Latin either, although there are many words for self-love or a ‘autos’ in Greek meaning a sense of oneself. In fact the world selfish entered our vocabulary in English at a time where the individual was being paraded as the basis for life, if you like the origins of the so-called ‘American Dream’. I am not a critic of capitalism, I have said this before and I maintain my theoretical home as partly being in economic theory and partly being in social theory. I am however, a critic of the emergence of individualism that came with the protestant ethos and the focus on personal gain – this is what I would term egocentric. 

Back to standing in front of my mirror contemplating my sense of self-worth. I am not how much money I have, I am not what kind of house I have, I am not what job I do, I am not the car I drive, and most of all I am not what other people give me value as. The reason it has taken me so long to formulate this blog is because it is a really difficult concept/idea/notion to process. As humans we are most comfortable understanding who we are by comparing ourselves with others. I am white because I am not brown or black, I am a woman because I am not a man, I am an extrovert because I am not an introvert, and the list goes on. So, the protestant ethos was based on the ideal that the harder you worked and the more you had the more likely you were to go to heaven. It was about the ego and the individual, and not about self-love and compassion for self and hence naturally for others. Because only when you love yourself can you truly love others. 

Hopefully, you can see what I am trying to get at here – the ego takes over the sense of self. The Latin origins of the world ego are "the self; that which feels, acts, or thinks,", and so I would make the case that here is where we see the deepest infection in our societies today. Actions are being driven by an ego that acts out a place of fear of not having enough or not being enough. I am a pretty strong confident well-educated woman, but for almost my entire life I have been driven by a need for validation from others. I compared myself to others, I wanted to ‘fit-in’ in all the different places I lived – I realize now how exhausting that was for my sense of self, especially given all the different places I have lived in my life! I allowed bullying to get to me, I socialized with people I didn’t really like deep down, I did things I did not enjoy and I stayed in a relationship for far too long because he was nice to me – all because I was too afraid, I was being driven by my ego and by fear. 

What does all of this have to do with Covid-19? It is how I have observed the behaviour of others over the past month, but most importantly how I have observed my own behaviour. As self-isolation began here in Vancouver a little over two weeks ago there was hysteria in the grocery stores, panic in everyone’s eyes and a resistance by many of the need to socially distant for a time. I had a moment in my local Wholefoods store about two weeks ago where I witnessed two people fighting over toilet paper, the irony of the situation was that it was the most expensive bamboo organic kind. As I stood there watching I was myself overcome by panic and the need to have toilet paper. As I walked home I thought about it and forgave myself for allowing my ego for a brief minute to take over and believe the narrative that ‘I needed’. Friends, family and colleagues have asked me in recent days if I am lonely as they know I live alone and that my immediate family is scattered across the globe; without hesitation I answer them all “no”. How can I feel lonely when I am always with me? I understand my self-worth, I acknowledge that I am enough, I know that I have enough and in this I can savior my solitude. Do not misunderstand me, I adore the company of people: the conversations, the lessons I learn, the laughter, the sharing; but my sense of self, of who I am comes from me. My hope is that during this time of social distancing is that many will have the time and the space to think on who they are without all the ‘noise’ of needs and things to do all the time. When they strip away the ego, do they have a real sense of self? When you stand in front of the mirror, can you say “I love you”?