Narcissist Epidemic

Well, as usual today is a sunday, and as usual I am on a lookout in the Sunday Times for lee wei ling's article in the papers. FYI: she is MM Lee's daughter. (so u can guess her age bah=P)...Anws, I always enjoy reading her articles because of her unique " i dun care " attitude reflected in her writings. And today, there was a very interesting writing by her. She wrote about our island's youth being very much self-centered and less driven. And she coined the term, Narcissism Epidemic. She wrote that she had observed that the new generations of doctors( as she is from the medical field) is getting more 'spoilt', and often complains about how tough are the systems and all. She also touched upon the various causes for this epidemic, like family upbringing to the school environment.

The term narcissism refers to the personality trait of egotism, which includes the set of character traits concerned with self-image ego.

The above is the definition for narcissism. As one can see, its when someone is very concerned about his own self more than others. And one will be more important than others. I have to agree with lee wei ling on this matter, as I know that I am kinda narcissist as well=P. Like what most psychologists has said, in every of us, there is some narcissistic elements in all of us. So, the question that had popped in my head was : " Are we , the next generation, that narcissist and lack of drive?"

I have to acknowledged the fact that most of us, generally has a 'Me first' mindset in all of us, and it might be due to our competitive environment that we are living in. Remember the word 'kiasu' ? Its about us singaporeans whom are scare to lose out...so it is no surprise that we eventually turn out to have this kind of 'me first' thinking. I think that this is something, as human beings we can improve on, because how many times have we heard of singaporeans being bo chap and all.

Another aspect is our lack of drive. History has shown that when anyone is push into a corner, then they will fight. During WW2, Great Britain was constantly bombarded by the luftwaffe bombers, and yet the men still constantly work in the weapons factory overtime to produce weapons for the armed forces out there. There is no pay, and all, but they still went all out. Why? to accomplished their dream of being able to survive, to win the war. So it always seems that hardship is the way to create this kind of drive, to in built these into people. Of course, like wei ling had said, its weird to create hardship for our young, and I agree with her. She proposed schools to nurture pupils and for parents to not spoiled their kids. However, I feel that this is always a very difficult way to apply as she is proposing all these measures in a macro way but on a more intimate level, its difficult to apply lor.

Thinking back, I also have some friends who somehow seems stagnant in their lives currently and often wonder when will they hit their big break and achieved things. On the other hand, I have friends who are already successful in their own ways. After reading a lot of biographies as well as books about successful people, I realised that it is truly the drive that separates the winners from the stagnants. That may very well be their secret after all.