Full of Self: Breaking Free from Self-Focus

If I am full of myself, I have no room for anyone else.

If my thoughts are all about me, I have no thoughts about you. If my emotional life is occupied with my feelings, I have no feelings left for you. If I am focused on my aches and pains, I am not interested in your health. If I am fully engaged with myself and my problems, I don’t care a whit about you or your problems.

If I am full of myself, I only pay attention to you when you are talking about me. Everything around me is ‘all about me,’ and I am the center of the universe, or at least that part of the universe that is around me.

In conversation, I might think or say, “Well, enough about me from me, let’s hear from you about me.”

If I can empty myself of myself, even a scintilla, then, to that extent, I can care about you, focus on your problems and become interested in you.