Mark Leary Ph.D.
Self-preoccupation lies at the heart of many of life’s difficulties.
Our lives are filled with many challenges. All of us struggle with personal problems such as stress, anxiety, depression, self-doubt, addiction, and worries about our health, finances, and future. Our relationships with our partners, children, and other family members are often riddled with conflict, and our relationships with our friends, neighbors, bosses, and co-workers are challenging as well. Society heaps on additional concerns in the form of crime, violence, economic problems, prejudice, political discord, terrorism, and environmental issues.
All of these problems are complex, and their solutions elusive. Yet they share a common link. For the most part, they are all caused by human beings. Most of the problems that we face — within ourselves, in our relationships with other people, and in society — are caused by people. Granted, a few problems don’t require human collusion (tornadoes and earthquakes come to mind), but most do. Human behavior is by far the single largest cause of the difficulties that each of us experience in life. Most problems are people problems, and the people who cause our problems are quite often us.
Therein lies a basic paradox about human nature. On one hand, human beings have used their intelligence, creativity, and ability to work together in groups to improve life dramatically through science, technology, government, philosophy, education, health care, art, and other features of human civilization. But, on the other hand, human beings also behave in highly maladaptive ways that create a slew of social, relational, and personal problems both for themselves and for others. How can people be so intelligent and effective yet also so dysfunctional? What is wrong with people?
Philosophers, psychologists, writers, theologians, and others have wrestled with this question for centuries. The theme that will run through this blog is that the core of many of these problems is the pervasive human tendency to be excessively self-focused. Naturally, we all focus mostly on ourselves and our lives, and we view the world mostly from our own perspective. But people are generally more preoccupied with themselves than they need to be. And their excessive self-centeredness, egocentrism, and selfishness underlie many, perhaps most, of our problems.
When people commit crimes, for example, it’s almost always because they have put their own interests so far above other people’s well-being that they steal, rob, assault, murder, or otherwise hurt other people to get what they want. At the extreme, terrorist actions are rooted in abject egocentrism and selfishness, and most wars begin when some party feels justified in attacking someone to obtain some collectively selfish goal.
Prejudice and discrimination are fundamentally self-centered reactions, as are greed, deceit, and treating other people unfairly. Many of the conflicts in our personal lives arise from our egocentric conviction that other people should do what we want them to or from their egocentric conviction that we should do what they want. Likewise, many of our arguments with other people reach an impasse because everybody is certain that they are right. And, this unfounded certainty in our beliefs feeds political, religious, and cultural conflicts at every turn. We even get into heated arguments with each other about things that don’t matter very much simply because other people don’t agree with the way we see things.
Even in the privacy of our own minds, our preoccupation with ourselves often feeds ongoing anxiety, stress, shame, or dissatisfaction. In fact, our ruminations about ourselves and our lives can create stress and unhappiness even when things are actually fine at the moment. Of course, to live happily and effectively, we have to think about ourselves, but our self-thoughts are frequently obsessive and distressing. So people often look for ways to turn off their unwanted mental chatter, whether through positive means such as exercise or meditation or with less beneficial strategies such as excessive use of alcohol or drugs.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of Executive Appraisers Louisiana, an MBE-certified real estate appraisal firm, and EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Loved this – it’s so true!