This is a question that just popped into my head the other day, and I wanted to think through it: where is the line between narcissism and self-improvement?
I suppose I first need to justify why this is even a question.
First, I want to establish something I’ve talked about in other posts, that most human personality traits seem to be on a certain continuum. Often, if you slide too far one direction, you go from having a great trait to one that is loathed.
For instance, self-confidence: good. Arrogance: bad.
What’s the difference between them? In my mind, very little. Arrogance is just a little bit further along on the slider. Perhaps humility is a separate slider that also comes into play, but you see my point.
Likewise, while I don’t think that “self-improvement” is really a personality trait (though I suppose narcissism is), I think it still has an inextricable link with potential narcissism.
My thoughts aren’t totally settled on any of this yet, so I may not express myself clearly here. This post may be more of a stream of consciousness than one that actually makes a point.
First, let’s look at the common threads between them.
Both require a degree of self-focus, which isn’t inherently bad. Too much self-focus can lead to self-centeredness as a state.
It can also lead to selfishness, which I’m only now trying to define as being different from self-centeredness. I think being self-centered involves your thoughts and motivations which tend to be focused on yourself but are essentially entirely within your own head.
Selfishness, however, involves action. Specifically, action that harms others. I don’t think it’s selfish to be thinking of yourself, but it is selfish to make decisions that benefit you but harm others.
To illustrate, here’s an example. Let’s say that you were on a desert island with one other person. There are two coconuts to eat.
If you’re self-centered, you are thinking about your needs and how to meet them. You may not be thinking about the other person at all, even if you are thinking you’d like to eat both coconuts.
Once you’ve decided to actually eat both coconuts and leave the other person with nothing, that’s selfish. It’s actual behavior that hurts others.
This is all coming to me as I write this, so hopefully I’ll come to a point here!
So both narcissism and self-improvement come from a self-focus. But I think it’s clear that narcissism requires a much greater degree of self-focus than self-improvement.
It’s normal and healthy to want to improve yourself. Self-improvement leads to many practical benefits in life. I choose to focus on it to a great extent in my own life, both because I’d like the tangible benefits it can lead to, but also because improving myself feels like a good way to live my life. Meaning that it’s the process of self-improvement rather than what that improvement can do for me that is appealing.
For example, I enjoy reading history books and learning various things about the state of the world. This is knowledge that is unlikely to have a direct impact on my life, but I still feel improved in having learned it.
In contrast to self-improvement, I think narcissism requires a very unhealthy level of self-focus. It requires you to be focused on yourself constantly, and almost to be enamored with yourself. And just like when you’re enamored with somebody else, it blinds you to flaws.
Narcissists typically have massive blind spots where they don’t recognize their own flaws. That’s obviously quite problematic for any real self-improvement, but also just generally has very practical downsides.
One could argue that narcissists also tend to have a fairly fragile ego, and so perhaps they are willfully blind to their own flaws because they can’t accept that there are any. They can’t function unless they trick themselves into believing they are the best at everything.
It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I had an additional, related epiphany. This could be an entire other post by itself, but it’s still worth mentioning.
Insecurity, even (and perhaps especially) extreme insecurity, is often a form of self-centeredness. I didn’t realize it until witnessing with my own eyes people who were extremely insecure and sad later become happy but also completely selfish.
Again, it requires a degree of self-focus beyond what is healthy. If you are always looking inward, it’s easy to find and then focus on flaws. If you’re very self-centered but unhappy, it will be apparent to everyone around you that you are insecure.
But what they don’t realize is that the same self-focus won’t go away if you are happy. You’re still going to focus on yourself and be selfish to the detriment of those around you.
Back to the original question, I want to pose an example and use that to figure out some answers.
Take weight training / bodybuilding for example. This is an area where I think the line between narcissism and self-improvement can get very difficult to identify.
Building muscle is good for you. It keeps you healthy, it helps prevent injury especially in old age, it increases your metabolism, it makes you more attractive, and can certainly increase your self-confidence, too.
So is it a valid form of self-improvement? Of course!
But now picture somebody who has gotten into incredible shape, and spends an hour every day looking in the mirror, admiring his own body. That certainly doesn’t sound healthy, does it?
But now imagine a scenario where somebody used to be quite overweight and is now looking in the mirror and feeling proud of what they’ve accomplished. That can’t be narcissism, can it?
Now you see how thin the line is.
I don’t really know that I’m any closer to an answer on this than I was before.
I guess in general, degree is the most important thing. Having a bit of self-focus and working to make meaningful improvements in yourself and in your life while retaining a healthy perspective of yourself is just regular self-improvement.
If it becomes extreme to the point where you are sacrificing others or even other parts of yourself and causing problems in your pursuit of improvement, it might be narcissism. Especially if you have an inflated and unreasonable self-image.
I guess my conclusion is that there really is a “self-focus” slider for everyone’s personality. As long as you keep empathy and self-awareness high, you can have a relatively high degree of self-focus that will lead to positive growth.
Without high empathy and with low self-awareness, a high degree of self-focus can lead to narcissism.
Unfortunately, since it seems that most personality traits of this nature are relatively static, it might be hard to do much about it even if you find you have a problem. Which tracks with reality, since narcissism seems to be lifelong.
But still, you can always do your best to maximize empathy and also recognize these things in others.
And that’s it. This was quite the rant, but I still feel like I had some interesting thoughts there that might be worth exploring in future posts.