Self-Examine : Egocentric

There's once, a closed friend came to me and said:

"Macam tak percaya dah 3 tahun aku berkawan dengan insan serumit diri hang"

And she's not the only one! If you see me for the first time, you might say something like "Sombong""Unfriendly""Pendiam""Tak banyak cakap" (indeed, I don't talk much! Unless you're my family members or my best friends).

JS comments really inspires me to jot down something about 'egocentric'. I should thank him for this. Instead of being defensive, it's really make me eager to search for the meaning, which leads me to understand more about myself.

Egocentrism:

The term derives from the Greek egô, meaning "I." An egocentric person has no theory of mind, cannot "put himself in other people's shoes," and believes everyone sees what he sees (or that what he sees in some way exceeds what others see.)

Source

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company:

1. Holding the view that the ego is the center, object, and norm of all experience.
a. Confined in attitude or interest to one's own needs or affairs.
b. Caring only about oneself; selfish.

2. Philosophy
a. Viewed or perceived from one's own mind as a center.
b. Taking one's own self as the starting point in a philosophical system.

From The Critical Thinking Community:

The Human Mind Is Naturally Prone To the Following Egocentric Tendencies

Egocentric memory (the natural tendency to "forget" evidence and information which does not support our thinking and to "remember" evidence and information which does)

Egocentric myopia (the natural tendency to think absolutistically within an overly narrow point of view)

Egocentric infallibility (the natural tendency to think that our beliefs are true because we believe them)

Egocentric righteousness (the natural tendency to feel superior in the light of our confidence that we are in the possession of THE TRUTH)

Egocentric hypocrisy (the natural tendency to ignore flagrant inconsistencies between what we profess to believe and the actual beliefs our behavior imply, or inconsistencies between the standards to which we hold ourselves and those to which we expect others to adhere)

Egocentric oversimplification (the natural tendency to ignore real and important complexities in the world in favor of simplistic notions when consideration of those complexities would require us to modify our beliefs or values)

Egocentric blindness (the natural tendency not to notice facts or evidence which contradict our favored beliefs or values)

Egocentric immediacy (the natural tendency to over-generalize immediate feelings and experiences--so that when one event in our life is highly favorable or unfavorable, all of life seems favorable or unfavorable as well)

Egocentric absurdity (the natural tendency to fail to notice thinking which has "absurd" consequences, when noticing them would force us to rethink our position)

Taken from The Miniature Guide to the Human Mind

When I read a part of the Kitab Tajul Muluk, about the secret of birthday & women's attitude, I found the followings, which can be related to the post title:

ISNIN
Wanita ini bersikap jujur, tidak mudah menggelabah atau panik, berhati-hati, tidak mudah mengalah, pandai menjaga diri dan pergaulan. Ramai teman lelaki dan wanita yang menyukainya. Dia juga mudah memberi pertolongan, cergas, berusaha kuat, teliti dan pandai menguruskan kewangannya. Namun jika marah berapi-api dan menakutkan, jarang mahu mengaku kalah dalam pertengkaran. Dalam percintaan, dia mencurahkan kesetiaan tidak berbelah bagi dan sedia berkorban. Seksualnya kurang membara melainkan pasangannya pandai mencari tempat rangsangannya.

Let me self-examine:
- Jujur - yes. Just like my reply..
- Tidak mudah mengelabah atau panik - yes.
- Berhati-hati - not all the time.
- Tidak mudah mengalah - yes.
- Pandai menjaga diri dan pergaulan - yes.
- Ramai teman lelaki dan wanita yang menyukainya - I don't know, you tell me.
- Mudah memberi pertolongan - yes.
- Cergas - yes... as I said, I love any kind of sports.
- Berusaha kuat - yes.
- Teliti - yes... associated with perfection, isn't it?
- Pandai menguruskan kewangan - yes, most of the time but there'll be a time that I will shop a lot!
- Jika marah berapi-api & menakutkan, jarang mengaku kalah dalam pertengkaran - no doubt. It's not easy to see the dark side of me as I prefer to stay calm. Dulu-dulu ye la, sinis & memedihkan telinga (dan juga hati).. It'll happen now once a while!

*I don't want to comment on the last two lines...:P*

There's a lot more to improve in life. Everybody has their bad side story. This egocentric thing can be tolerated at the right place and at the right time. Most of the time, sabar menjadi penawar yang paling manis. Furthermore, as the time passed by, our hormone changes. We can adapt ourselves to our surroundings maturely. Sometimes we might strike back, sometimes we'd be calm, quiet and just let it be.

Allah will test us, perhaps everyday, small and sometimes suddenly with a big test. We might feel it's unfair as we'll feel that we're right (caring only about ourselves) but with the guidelines to the straight path, we'd understand that, "Kadangkala yang dirasakan baik bagi kamu, sebenarnya tidak disukai Allah dan begitu juga sebaliknya." Bare in mind, we're not perfect and not always right!

As a human made by Allah swt, we should set in mind that we've to adhere to the Islamic guidelines. It's simple and beautiful. Sometimes it's hard to follow, but once you follow, you'll feel like "lapang dada" and "betapa manisnya iman". Subhanallah.


EH... BUKANKAH MANA-MANA AHLI POLITIK MALAYSIA JUGA BERSIKAP 'EGOCENTRIC'?