I once wrote a lengthy article about MY perspective on why even people who say "Why do you make it all about YOU?" are indeed asking that very question from their own perspective!
This is the article, which I wrote in 2013. I think I meant it with some humor? (although the thing where people thank God for their getting the acting award (imagining God took time off from world hunger to make sure Carlotta Gump gets her Tony) has become a pet peeve
Can someone explain what feels like a 2010s trend, people saying "Why do
you make everything about YOU?"
It just seems knee-jerk, and it begs the question: Who else's reaction
to something should I be having other than my own? I go through
umpteen years of school to better MYSELF, don't I? I work to support
MYSELF and MY family, don't I? I do what I can to help MY friends and
family because I care about them, and I actively help charities or
causes or politicians I MYSELF support because I care about them.
When people stop being MY friends, they probably don’t want me to continue caring
and asking after them. Indeed, it might be considered rude and
intrusive. (As someone said when I casually asked how a former mutual
friend was doing, “Why do you want to know, are you writing a book?”)
When I leave a job, no one complains if I stop caring about how that
company is doing, even though its success was crucial to me before. The only
reason I cared before was because it affected ME and MY family and MY
finances and MY survival. No one questions that as correct, do they?
So is it a film, a book, a clergyman, what, that has given rise to this
catch-phrase? Where did this sudden "why do you make
everything about you" reaction come from, seemingly directed at
everyone these days? Really, it‘s not just directed at ME, let ME
assure you.
Take the awards season that we’re in now for theater, where people seem
to thank a higher power a bit, as if that detracts from the award quest
being about themselves. But when you thank the Lord for your statue, aren’t you
saying that YOU are somehow more worthy of attention than not only (of course)
the other four nominees, but also pesky matters like world hunger,
global warming. How is it not being about ME, ME, ME, to imagine a
higher power saying :”Let’s take five on fixing that [fill in natural
disaster] to make sure so-and-so gets his or her Lucille Lortel Award.”
My point is not that it’s wrong to look at the world from your own
perspective. It’s just that to call other people on it all the time,
as we seem to be doing right now, is denying that making ourselves
better through the best aspects of our self-interest, and meeting our
own potential, may be the best way for everyone to add to the world, which is getting
smaller every year due to the net.. Maybe embrace that
you’re indeed here for you and yours, and the good feeling it gives YOU
to help others, the joy it brings YOU to make change.
Sometimes these days, I’d just hope for people who simply don’t abuse
other people in arriving at their own personal goals.
I’d love for those people to just be about themselves and not hurt others
maliciously or even recklessly.
Why is it necessarily a bad thing, then? Isn’t it what you do with what
you’re given? I’d imagine even Mother Theresa did what she did for the good
feeling it gave HER to do it.
