Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying all problems are imaginary ?
When you get to the root of them, yes.
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Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
341–350 of 404 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#342As they say, the first step is recognizing that you have a problem. It's wonderfully adult of you to consider it. The cool thing is that you're going to find out that not only do you have this problem, you likely have more than just these issues. Because you've opened up with yourself, you have the awesome opportunity to be a lot better person. Personally, I have issue with being myopic (focus to easily on a singular…
Just wanted to add something. Narcisists are not socially inept or weakly wired. They like to be at the center of attention, that’s how the narcisistic supply is obtained.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#343What helped me the most was reading the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and following the instructions. It's cheesy, it's old school, it's a classic, it's outdated but darn it the (outdated) advice in that book really does work, and it really did help me turn my personality around and even improved my outlook on life/humanity. I didn't really take an interest in others that much beforehand, but once I started being more extroverted and chatting with others, more people became my friend and I feel more engrossed in my community- I even know my bank teller and sandwich guys names now and realized I'm downright cheerful at times. I take more of an interest in others and keep getting promoted at work due to what seems solely on my personality... I mean, my quality of work is good, too. For example, a recent award I won cited, "your positive energy is contagious and especially welcome tackling tough projects."
But yeah... that book brought me from a depressed cynic to someone who takes an interest in others and basically the whole world is my friend- even people I haven't met yet, they are just friends I don't know yet.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#344Reading fiction might help, well, certain fiction. My first thoughts are to Tolstoy's War and Peace. It seems like it would be hard to come out of a sincere reading of this book and still be entirely self-centered.
If not War and Peace I'd avoid genre fiction here and go for literary greats with real depth honestly trying to plumb the human experience. You'll understand why I'd tend to suggest books in the third person with multiple protagonists, full and round characters.
By the way if you choose War and Peace, avoid the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation (wooden) and choose instead either Briggs (more modern and flexible) or the Maude translation (precision at the risk of being overly-grammatical).
An interesting point about Tolstoy is that all of his characters are unique, even the most minor ones, and at the same time they are all branched in to human, cultural and historical experience and moment.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its easier if I just write it here. From July 2009-2010 I deployed to a unit in Kuwait and forward deployed to Afghanistan as part of a 2 person information assurance review team. We traveled around the country and visited the major, and some minor, US Army bases to perform friendly audits to improve the information security posture of the installations on the ground. We were constantly traveling. I think I went on 2…
I've not read your reply, and acknowledge that others say it was on excellent read. Do you not though think it ironic that in a thread about narcissism you have the longest blog post about someone's life (I've seen on HN) after they've essentially alluded to having been humbled.
However when you read it, you find that the writer talks not at all about their own accomplishments.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#346Frankly, I've thought a lot about narcissism and I'm beginning to think it's a bit nonsensical, as in some ways I think it can be used as a term to demonize others to justify the cognitive dissonance of treating them poorly. Similar to any kind of generalization... you assign a label to dehumanize them. For example, some commonly associated traits ascribed to narcissism are a desire of power, status, or admiration fr…
Yeah its a vicious cycle, many people how have encountered a narcissist can spot another one easily. If experienced, usually they will seek to distance themselves from that person. Usually the discussion goes something like: "oh he's the kind of person to do x" or "she's said y can you believe it? why are people like that?"
The person has little clue they are pretty different and wonder why it is so hard to make friends or get close to anyone. An acquaintance of mine once lamented about how she never was able to keep close friends for more than 2 years, I kinda knew why but I wasn't in the position to tell her how selfish/narcissistic she can be.
The thing is, people who avoid narcissists, have their justifications for doing so, no one wants to be in a one sided friendship/relationship. They aren't making excuses to treat them poorly because they don't like that person, they've seen the person take and be selfish without giving and it drains them and they distance themselves as a result.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#347Perhaps the closest opposite to narcissism is humility. One way to really experience humility is to inject yourself into something truly foreign where money is an insufficient remedy. I don't know what that humbling experience will be for you. For me it was living in Afghanistan for 2 years, of which one of those years I traveled frequently and spoke with many people there. It doesn't matter how much money you make a…
This is interesting advice. To add on to it, hiking the Appalachian Trail might accomplish a similar goal. The combination of endless alone time for self reflection, the simplicity of the task at hand, and sleeping on the ground every night will inject a dose of humility into anyone.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#348There are other good tips here. The tip I'm about to give should be used supplementary:
Buy Search Inside Yourself (it's a book about meditation written by an early Google software engineer that invited scientific and Buddhist experts to help him out).
Train your compassion by doing the exercises that lead up to Tonglen. Tonglen itself might be too extreme, but he has a milder version of that, that I think is a very good exercise.
I think it was something along the lines of: visualize someone's love flowing into you, then feel that you're multiplying that love by 10 and then give it all back to the person you just got it from.
The second exercise is to look at random people (or known people) and wish them the very best, but be specific about it, make it as personal and specific as possible.
What these 2 exercises do is that they create habits, habits to think about others. When you go about your daily life, you'll notice yourself doing this automatically at a subconscious level at some point.
There's a reason I named my username after this.
Disclaimer: I'm a lazy meditator :( but it does work! And it did have lasting changes.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#349I dont think its really a bad thing to think highly of yourself. I think a lot of people agree given that trump managed to win an election. so its ok as long as you understand your personality is polarizing and not everyone will like it. If you tend to take things personally, thats often because they are, even if you are not supposed to take it that way. You just have to learn to hide your reaction sometimes because you cant always afford to get angry. You cant change who you are. Those who petend otherwise are hopeless, so you just have to accept it.
Re: Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
#350I'm not entirely convinced narcissism is something that has to be fixed. There are some aspects to it that are of course destructive as you mentioned (not enjoying listening to other people, and taking things to personally). Fixing these things I think comes down to enjoying the people you spend time with, and a radical belief that things will work out no matter what happens. But there are other aspects of narcissism…
Being a true narcissist will torpedo any attempt to build meaningful relationships both personal and professional due to the lack of empathy or ability to put one in another person's shoes. This makes leading, negotiations and selling difficult but not impossible I guess. Overconfidence is one positive trait associated with it but there are many negatives. If you believe nothing is at fault with you and it's everyone else's fault, it hard to be self reflective enough to improve as well.