Don Bosco Philippines South Province

Ever since I met the “post modern” word and its friends “egoism”, “self-actualization”, and “self-centeredness”, I have become conscious of how I begin my journal entries. Have I used “I” again as I begin this entry? I leaf through the pages of the past days, and, whoa, most of them begin with “I”. This would be excusable since it is my journal entry. What if I begin everything with the “I”?

I, here I go again, get tired of people always talking about themselves. The conversation becomes boring and heavy when it could not go beyond the Me-Myself-and-I topic. Talking to people who cannot stop talking about themselves is like being sucked into a black hole. You just want to get out of it. We Filipinos call the most obvious ones as mahangin, but there are those who are more subtle. They start the conversation about something which slowly and silently spirals towards themselves. Yikes! It’s pitiable because it is symptomatic of a low self-esteem or the non-acceptance of the self for one two always need the assurance and affirmation of other people.

People, and that includes you and me, are more self-centered now more than ever. We all have this level of self-centeredness, for it is natural to us, but it stinks like fish when it becomes selfishness. Are we not too pre-occupied with our self-image? Businesses capitalize on this in the multi-billion dollar enterprise of cosmetics and fashion. We have to go back again to the True Center of everything.

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