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Personal Growth —

How to Become the Good Kind of Narcissist

Thankfully, there is a kind of socially-beneficial narcissism. After all, following the rules is a good thing, and you follow the rules better than anyone else, don’t you, you special person!
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Narcissism is perhaps the most publicly despised yet privately felt quality our of time, in which the rugged individual not only pulls him or herself up by the bootstraps, but maintains social network profiles that show how good looking and cultured they were along the way. The same qualities that make individuals narcissistic, i.e. the feeling that rules of convention do not apply to them, also make many people more creative and successful in the professional world. The problem arises when that exclusive self-love enters the personal realm and begins to question the validity of things like restrictions on blood alcohol limits while driving.

What’s the Big Idea?

There is, thankfully, a kind of socially-beneficial narcissism employed (rather proudly) by the writer and fashionista Simon Doonan. After all, following the rules is a good thing, and you follow the rules better than anyone else, don’t you! “Over time,” said Doonan, “I have turned this willingness to obey rules into a whole new platform for self-love.” For those of you still struggling with the early stages of narcissism, Doonan has some advice: “Come out as a narcissist. Just being open about it and aware of the problem will make you seem like less of a self-obsessed nightmare.”

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

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Barack Obama – Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?
Obama’s early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally bruising dislocations. Mixed-race marriages were even less common then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Pathological narcissism is a reaction to prolonged abuse and trauma in early childhood or early adolescence. The source of the abuse or trauma is immaterial: the perpetrators could be dysfunctional or absent parents, teachers, other adults, or peers.
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