I know a selfish man who did not know he was selfish. Even when he found out, he could not do anything about it. Hard as he tried, he could not break this habit.
One day his wife wanted to hire a steam cleaner for their home’s concrete areas. She asked him to help. She would operate the machine and he would move the heavy items. He said yes.
When the day arrived, he was cleaning a fish tank, and his wife began to steam clean. This selfish man was dealing with separate issues. Not only had he been unemployed for 18 months, his small startup business was not doing well. He was depressed, and he could not quite identify why he was unhappy. He was chiding himself for not working harder and for not looking for another job when he saw his wife active all day long, and he was not.
This compounded his already weak self-esteem and self-confidence.
When this selfish man looked out to see if anything needed to be moved, he saw that his wife had already moved it. He went on to other things, always with a self-absorbed attitude. Finally, after three hours, this selfish man could not take the sound of the steam cleaner generator any longer.
He Couldn’t Be Persuaded
Just as he was leaving (without telling his wife), the generator stopped. Even though he realized his wife needed help moving everything back, he left.
In a fog, he drove to a park to read a novel. He remained there until he was sure that his wife had finished the work.
His wife was very upset, and reminded him how selfish he had been again.
While running an errand just before he returned home, he listed to a shrink on talk radio who made one memorable point:
Speaking to a newlywed wife, who could not understand why her recently unemployed husband appeared so distant and unresponsive, the shrink said it was hard for a man to admit to his wife he had failed and was without hope.
Added to what his wife was saying, the shrink’s message resonated. In the past, he would have denied his selfishness, defended his actions and argued his way out of his selfish behavior.
This time he did not. He admitted candidly that he had been selfish and that she had every right to be angry at him. He told her, with sincerity, that he truly thought that she was an amazing person to have done that whole job by herself. He said he was amazed at how busy she kept herself and how upbeat she was all the time.
Look What Was in Charge
He had lost his successful, happy and prosperous self-image. He was allowing how his body to dictate how his mind should feel.
In reality, the mind has the ability to be happy even if the body says otherwise. On those days when we are sick, accept your body is ill but not your ability to think in a constructive way.
If we were to take the time we wasted on bewailing our fate and invested it in vision for a a successful future instead, where would people such as the selfish husband be?
By admitting his selfishness, he opened the door to the necessary communication for describing what was happening for pledging to change.
A clinical hypnotherapist, handwriting analyst and expert master hypnotist, Nicholas Pollak may be contacted at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net
