Selfish vs. Self-centered

“Selfish” and “self-centered” mean slightly different things to me:

  • Selfish: directly giving myself priority over others when deciding between the two. For example, selfishness asks, “Should I take that last donut or offer it to someone else? Ah, I’ll take it.”
  • Self-centered: indirectly giving myself priority over others by ignoring them. For example, self-centeredness asks, “Should I have coffee with that last donut?”

Selfish decisions are blatant, deliberate attempts to improve ourselves at the expense of others. Everyone else might not see how deliberate these decisions are, but you know because you struggle with them internally.

Self-centered is more about direction (or mindset) than individual decisions. It’s an ignorance of others that’s often so pervasive we don’t even notice it. We don’t even realize that what we’re doing is wrong.

Overall, there’s a lot of overlap between the being selfish and being self-centered. I like to distinguish between them, though, because I think it helps us confront the problems better.

I’m still sorting out how to best work through them, but I think in general…

  • The key to killing selfishness is support
  • The key to killing self-centeredness is awareness

Thoughts?

Serving Suggestions:

(1) Create accountability… with yourself, with others, and with God. Make it more difficult to choose the selfish path. That goes directly against human nature, so it’s bound to be tough. But building encouragement into your life is the best way I know to start making deliberate choices in favor of others instead of yourself.

(2) Listen to other people. Before acting, consider how you’ll affect them. Stay connected to God through prayer, the Bible, and fellowship with other Christians. Let Him prick your conscience and make you aware of His desire for others.