Selfish or Self Centered?

Webster's Dictionary defines Self-Centered as Concerned Solely with one's own desires, needs or interests.

It defines Selfish as Concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure or well-being without regard for others.

Given the two definitions presented above it lends me to the question - Selfish or selfcentered?

As a "people", we tend to use selfish in a deragatory fashion. Self Centered however is reserved for less callous descriptions.

I am a single woman as most of you know. I tend towards the self centered because, other than my cats, most of my day to day decisions only affect me.

However. Having said that - there are times when I have difficulty because my tendancy is to NOT put myself first. It's caused me a great deal of issues in the past.

My recital is actually a wonderful example. That day was all about me. The people who participated were very careful and respectful of that. It actually made me laugh because I am without pretentions in this area. But the day was all about me and I was very nervous that I would disappoint others because of that.

My coach is a Selfish person. I do not understand it, other than the genious aspect, but he is. I don't hold it against him. Most of the time, I just work around it. When the commentary came back on my performance, every single self centered bone in my body RESONATED with anger.

And I showed it.

He called me today and I pretty much spelled it out in no uncertain terms that I felt that his commentary was inappropriate. I don't need a lot of help lowering my self esteem and that did nothing for it. I told him very pointedly that if he meant what he said as a postive thing, he would have said it that way.

The thing is, I know many selfish people and I know many self centered people. The selfish ones have a tendancy towards excuses and display an inability to take responsibility for their actions. I have friends like this, I have a coach like this. I make my peace with it because each in their way is important to me. I just have to know how to deal with them.

In the case of coach, I have no illusions about what I am dealing with. He said those things publicly to look like a bigshot. When called on it, he tried to play it off as a joke, as a miscommunication and then lastly as a new definition for the word. I let it go, but the next conversation we have I will have to remind him that I am not stupid and he's not going to convince me that I am wrong on this. But I have no intentions on fighting with him any more either. I know what he is and what I get out of the relationship is important to me. He is a spoilt child and there is no reasoning with him in these situations so it has to stop now.

You see, thanks to my bestest bud, Bernie, I have heard someo the audio recordings from my performance. I couldn't believe it was me. It was really quite good. No ego here, lord knows I should try to develop one. I was really surprised at how good I was sounding. The proof is on the tape. The post Mortem is unnecessary in it's current context. We can discuss little things. the words here and there that I blew. Being off book in the future. That kind of thing.

But now that I have heard the proof, I feel much better - even vindicated to some degree. I trust my family and my friends who attended. But that microbe of doubt in me was made into a skyscraper with that one comment. So I needed the proof that I am not crazy on this one.

I use these recordings as proof, I use them for the bragging rights that I retain but don't shove down others throats, and as a tool to learn from most importantly.

Bernie - I can't thank you enough for this. It serves as my learning tool, but most importantly, it served as my peace of mind.