Egocentric Ways of Thinking
An egocentric tendency is the inclination to think only of oneself without thinking of others. Basically, this means putting some or all aspects in your life at the moment over everything else. I believe that everyone has egocentric tendencies mainly in areas where we fail to think logically. Three ways that I am egocentric include egocentric hypocrisy, blindness and immediacy.
Egocentric hypocrisy is the natural tendency to ignore flagrant inconsistencies between what we profess to believe and he actual beliefs our behavior imply, or inconsistencies between the standards to which we hold ourselves and those to which we expect others to adhere. This applies to me in various ways. For example, I want all of my friends to be as holy as a Christian. I’m not saying they need to be saved but I would like for them to practice religion.
When people ask me what religion I am part of I always say because I was raised by a Christian woman and in a Christian home. Hypocritically, I don’t practice what I preach. I don’t agree with a lot of the things a Christian is opposed to live by, such as how we can’t listen to certain kinds of music, how we can’t have sex before marriage, smoke or drink, and do most things that teenagers would call fun. So in conclusion, I can’t hold my friends to certain standards when I do not even live by them myself.
Another egocentric tendency I possess is egocentric blindness, the natural tendency to not notice facts or evidence that contradict our favored beliefs or values. Meaning, I am ignorant to things that I don’t already know or haven’t seen with my own eyes. Since I am this way I always have my guard up and I feel like it is very hard to “trick” me. I don’t believe anything I haven’t seen with my own eyes. I have heard countless testimonies and miracles being done by the mercy of Christ but I have never actually experienced it.
Therefore, I believe that faith is whatever it is believed to be. Yet people choose to argue religion while having no real evidence besides a man written bible. When people argue with me about religion I tend not to entertain it. When I do decide to, I try to get others to see that yes religion s acceptable and while I may not agree with religion I do understand why people believe. My mom once told me “If God isn’t real and you believe then when all is said and done you have absolutely nothing to lose.
But say God is real and you do not believe, then you have absolutely everything to lose. ” Speaking for myself, it is a lot easier to believe in something you can see. Egocentric immediacy is the natural tendency to overgrazing immediate feelings and experiences-?so that when one event in our life is highly favorable or unfavorable, all of life seems favorable or unfavorable as well. Its like favoring a certain belief or feeling as long as things are going right but turning away from those beliefs or feelings when things aren’t in your favor.
Last year on January 14th, I had been extremely ill and was admitted to the hospital with an internal infection. During my stay at the hospital, I received a phone call from my mother in Tampa, stating that my great grandfather had passed away. I immediately felt the need to give up on everything. The feeling I felt at that moment was superior to all persons, places, and things that came my way. The day after he passed away I began praying that he was pain free from cancer and living a great after life somewhere else.
As I was standing in my kitchen one of the wine bottles, that Just so happened to be from Italy, cork popped off. That immediately put me at ease. I felt like my prayers had been answered. An egocentric tendency is the inclination to think only of oneself without thinking of others. While we’re all people in progress it is important to change the way we think. But naturally when thinking egocentrically, we fail to do so.
