Living an isolated life in a large group of people creates a strange dynamic. I'm always with people, but hampered by language issues, I'm rarely "with" people. The interactions and friendships are real, but limited. I'm familiar with, and enjoy, the challenges and loneliness of truly being alone and the interaction and growth that comes from living in community, but this middle ground is messing with me. Having a crack-load of downtime doesn't help much.
I don't want to be self-centered, but it's hard not to be when you are human and you spend a lot of time in introspection. I am selfish and thinking about my selfishness doesn't fix anything. Getting down on myself for being self-centered only adds fuel to the fire, like a narcissist calling everyone's attention to how narcissistic he is and telling them how awesome he is to have seen his flaw and to be doing something about it. So yeah, I see the irony of writing an introspective blog about being self-centered.
For the lat few months, when faced with one of those dinky moments of frustration founded in someone screwing with my perfect little world, there has been a voice in my head repeating, esteem others more highly than yourself, esteem others more highly than yourself, esteem others more highly than yourself... baby steps.
I don't think I'm more selfish in Haiti than in the U.S. it's just a lot harder to hide in the distractions of life out here. I get to see more of my brokenness and then feel stupid for paying attention when there is other stuff to do. Hopefully that voice will have more of an impact on my actions when I get home, hopefully I'll think of others before myself, hopefully I'll be better at loving others rather than being frustrated by trying to figure out how to be better at loving others... hopefully Anchor Man 2 doesn't suck.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Philippians 2:3-4
I'm about to go through that in a small way. It's interesting how lack of distraction can identify so much about where you're at in an overwhelming way.
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