Discussion keeps the worldturning.
This isRoundtable. You're listening toRoundtable.
Withmyself,young, I'm joined by Yushun and Steve Hatherley in thestudio, coming up from the myth of Narcissus to modern-day social mediainfluencers.
Let's dive into what makes Narcissus tick and how we can navigate relationships withthem.
Ready for a discussion into the mind of anarcissist?
It's going to be aneye-opener.
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Now, let's move on to the next topic of discussiontoday.
Imagine gazing into a tranquil pool of water and falling hopelessly in love with your ownreflection.
Sounds like a fairytale,right?
Well, this ancient Greek myth of Narcissus gives us a fascinating glimpse into the complex world of Narcissism orZulien.
In Greekmythology,Narcissus, known for his unparalleledbeauty, becomes so enamored with his own image reflected in a pool that he wastesaway, unable to tear himself from thesite.
Today, we'll explore how this captivating tale relates to modern understandings of Narcissism from healthy self-esteem to pathologicalself-absorption.
Are you ready to dive deep into the waters of the human psyche and unravel the mysteries of theego?
Let's do justthat. Youshould, what qualifies asNarcissism?
Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by an excessive preoccupation with oneself and inflated sense of self-importance and a lack of empathy forothers.
Theseare, Ithink, very important aspects of being narcissisticpeople.
It involves an exaggerated sense of self-importance anduniqueness, a need for constant admiration andattention, a lack of empathy forothers' feelings andneeds, and manipulative and exploitative behavior in relationships and other arrogance and tendency to look down onothers.
Narcissism actually exists on a spectrum ranging fromnormal, healthy level of self-esteem to more extreme pathological forms that can manifest as narcissistic personalitydisorder, which is where we're going to talkabout,NPD.
We all took thetest. We didn't check ourresults, but we havethem, but we're going to share them a little bit later on at the end of our discussionhere.
I think as a humanbeing, everyone is a little bitnarcissistic.
Absolutely. I think everyone needs to be a littlebit.
Needs tobe. That'sinteresting.
Explainplease. Because there is a kind of a Chinese virtue that is beinghumbled.
In thatway, a lot of children are raised in an environment of being taught you need to behumble.
In thatcase, a lot of students or children are not that confident tothemselves.
In thatway, I think especially Chinesestudents, Chinesechildren, they need to have a little bit of sense of being narcissistic to be more confident and be acceptable to the achievements that theygained.
I've met plenty of Chinese peoplethough.
Some that they appearhumble, but the ego is definitelythere.
But it's just wearing an invisiblecloak.
Let's say that everybody has a friend or two likethat.
It doesn't matter where you're from in theworld.
These are funwords.Ego-centricism,narcissism.
Selfishness.Selfishness.
There's a fineline, isn'tthere?
You should not talk about everybody needs to be a little bitnarcissistic.
Perhaps you'reright. I don't know how far we go with thatthough, before you cross that invisible line into self-from-selfconfidence,self-awareness, taking care ofyourself.
All of asudden, you've crossed that line and now you care too much about yourself and you don't care about the results of youractions.
That is one of the red flags of narcissisticpeople.
It's one of the traits that they have is that they will do things and other people will be negatively affected by theiractions, but they don't reallycare.
They don't really see that clearly to them because they don't get punished for their actions a lot of thetime.
I found an example on theinternet, which I thought wasperfect.
Imagine that there's a group of people waiting for the birthday boy or the birthdaygirl.
Now the crowd has been waiting for 30minutes.
The birthdayboy, birthdaygirl, islate.
They prance into the room and everybodysays, Happybirthday.
There's no punishment for that 30 minutes of beinglate.
So the narcissistic person willthink,well, there's no repercussions for my negativeactions.
I'm going to continue to behave like this because I don't get negatively impacted byit.
So you're saying that if the birthday boy or birthday girl isnarcissistic?
They won'tcare. Everybody lives to serveme.
Yes,exactly. You have this inflated sense of self where you're the most important person in theroom.
They give examples of celebrities without namingcelebrities, but they say this often happens with celebrities because they are constantly the center ofattention.
People are constantly bowing down to them if they'rerude, if they'relate, it doesn'tmatter.
And this feedback that they receive causes them to take it even a stepfurther.
These are traits of narcissisticpeople.
And it might not necessarily be just celebrities for anybody in the position of power when there are no checks andbalances.
Well, if you've got a bigego, then it feeds on top ofthat.
Another example would be if your boss comes into the meeting 15 minuteslate,consistently.
Right? Nobody in the meetingsays, excuseme, can you stop doingthis?
Please, we're all sitting here waiting forno.
There's no negativeimpact.
There's no negativerepercussions.
So the boss will continue to behave thatway.
By theway, I'm not speaking about any bosses that I know here in thebuilding.
It's just a boss in generalexam.
But I don't think that will cause no negative impacts because people will have that kind of sensethat,okay, he's constantly being late and he's not aware ofit.
But they will not see it out because he is aboss.
So I think that will inevitably cause some kind of difficulties in maintaining these kind of a genuine or a long term relationships because of these kind ofnarcissism.
And one thing I would like to mention is that narcissism can stem from variousfactors, includinggenetics, neurobiology and environmental influences such as parentingstyles.
People with narcissistic traits can be charming andcharismatic.
And their self-centered behavior still may lead to thesedifficulties.
So it's a greatpoint. And that speaks tothis.
It'snurture,non-nature.
You're not born a narcissisticperson,right?
You're taught to be a narcissistic person because of the behavior that you display to otherpeople.
And you get that senseof,oh, maybe I'm more important than otherpeople.
These people also have kind of a sensitiveego.
They don't like to take criticism because maybe they're not used to hearing aboss, forexample, is not used to gettingcriticized.
So when they do hearthat, they don't take it verywell.
These are other traits of anarcissist,too.
Well, the researchers don't seem to necessarily agree on what the causes could beof, let'ssay, the most extreme type of narcissism that is narcissistic personalitydisorder.
We kind of mentioned thatyes, narcissism exists on aspectrum.
And this is really at the far end of that end ofnarcissism.
Andwell, some researchers say that this might be partiallyinherited.
I guess it's written in the DNA or something likethat.
And also there are the nurture argument aswell.
And according topsychiatrists,like,psychiatrists, Royce Lee and his colleagues at the University of Chicago say that narcissistic personality disorder might have something to do with the chemical reaction in our brains assuch.
And in our blood levels assuch.
So it's still kind of an elusive cause that we don't necessarily are able to pinpoint exactly what narcissistic personality disorder iscaused.
And now let's look at the extreme end of the spectrum ofnarcissism, which is narcissistic personaldisorder.
When does it become adisorder?
It is actually a pathologicalnarcissism, which is a diagnosablecondition, indicating that individual exhibits severe and detrimental behaviors that impact both their own life and lives ofothers.
And according to a study from National Library of Meditation ofUS, prevalence of lifetime NPD was6.2%.
And one possible explanation of these NPD could be narcissistic people tend to feel good about themselves and believe they are not sick so they don't even come to thehospital.
And that is why I think we need to discuss aboutthis.
And that is why it is thatdiagnosable.
I think you'reright. I don't think there's a person out there with narcissistic personality disorder whosays, you knowwhat?
I might haveNPD. Should I see the doc forthat?
Do they have Tylenol forthat?
No, theydon't. I think they don'tknow.
They feelsuperior. They feelentitled.
They'reselfish. They'rearrogant.
They have aneed, a desire for admiration from otherpeople.
They're very fragile with their ownegos.
And ecriticism is not taken well atall, particularly if they feel that it'sundeserved, but they don't even have the ability to know if it isdeserved.
They have trouble getting along with other people just ingeneral.
But on a more extremescale, they can becomeaggressive.
They can become violent if they suffer from narcissistic personality disorder aswell.
Can I please offer a footnote here while exact statistics I cannotfind, but I did find several sources indicate that narcissistic personality traits are common among serialkillers.
And these traits include a grandiose sense ofself-importance, lack ofempathy, need for admiration andattention, sense ofentitlement, and exploitivebehavior.
And one of the sources I found is the Netflix documentary series Conversations with aKiller, the Ted Bundy tapes about one of America's most infamous serial killers who displayed strong narcissistictraits.
However, it's important to note that not all narcissists become serial killers and not all serial killers arenarcissists, but a fair number of themare.
There's a crossoverthere, Iguess,right?
Just to go back to the general topic of beingnarcissistic, if you take a test online and we're going to get to our results in amoment, in your score comes out and it says that you are slightlynarcissistic, don'tpanic.
The majority of the world is slightly narcissistic because I found this quote from a psychologist which Iloved.
It's impossible not to be at least a little bit narcissistic because we see the world from the insideout.
I can only see the world through my own twoeyes, my lifeexperiences, my ownperspective, and it takeswork, it takes personaleducation, it takes time to graduate beyond that level to see the world through other people's eyes and through other people'sexperiences.
But that takeswork, that takes therapysometimes, it takes relationships and personalgrowth.
My point is back to what I saidbefore, if you do have a fun little online quiz and you find that you're a little bit narcissistic according to theresult, don'tpanic, that is completely and utterlynormal.
And also that actually comes back to my first point that Imentioned, you actually kind of need to be a little bit of narcissistic because as long as it doesn't affect your own mental state or the people aroundyou, I actually think that people with narcissistictendencies, they are thehappiest.
Because they don't care aboutothers' opinions and focus solely onthemselves, they become very happy with their ownachievements, and in fact thisis, Ithink, the quality that many people need to be kinder to themselves and give themselves morecredit.
I see yourpoint.Yes, Ido, but let's just call thatself-confidence.
Yeah. Let's not mix that up with narcissisticthings.
Which is why there's that big grayarea,right?
There's a fine line between being confident and beingarrogant, and you have to be self-aware enough to know when you're crossing thatline.
Yeah, but what you bothsaid, Ithink, is a really interesting sort of crossoverof, youknow, how maybe we look at how Chinese kids are beingraised.
Becauseyeah, a lot of Chinese kids are raised in ourculture, like you should say to behumble, but also maybe this is changing now with the youngergeneration.
But for a lot ofparents, they used to believe inthat,oh, shouldn't say too many praising words to thekid.
Shouldn't be tooencouraging, and sort of you learn from yoursitbacks, you learn from beingrepmented, that kind ofthing.
So therefore you've got a lot of Chinese kids growingup, and I wouldn't go as far as saying having lowself-esteem.
But we feel like we need to gain confidence gradually as a weak rowup.
So it's kind of the opposite of the journey of a narcissistic person is morelike, youknow, what you should mention just now sort of you almost need to learn through taking steps that you'reworthy, you'regood.
You can becomeconfident, and that's a goodthing.
So it's interesting because I've also lived in the States and theUK, and I'veseen, as a Chineseperson, you can't help but frown a little bit on so many participationtrophies.
You finish yourhomework,congratulations.
You finished fifth in thisrace, which only 10 peopleparticipated.
Oh welldone. So from ourculture, it just feelslike,oh, that's a little bit toogenerous.
When you got 98 on atest, maybe your parents said what happened to the other twopoints?
Yeah, what happens toyou, boy orgirl?
You should have workedharder.
See, you were a little sloppy the last time when you checked your examanswers.
Don't be so sloppy nexttime.
Youknow, maybe there needs to be a balancing act in thatsense.
Speaking of all these narcissisticbehaviors, how did wedo?
How did we score on this little test that Steve sent us right before theshow?
I really had to scramble to get my test resultsin.
Yeah, Ijust, I found it online just before we got startedtoday.
And Ithought,oh, this isfun.
So I put it in the groupchat.
And I'm glad you guys had a chance to completeit.
It was thisreally, reallyquick, youknow, fewquestions.
Obviously, take the results with a grain ofsalt.
Don't take it too much tohard.
SoSteve, what is your testresults?
Well, first ofall, are you are younot?
No, first ofall, let's dothis.
Let's take aguess. Who do we think among the three of us had the highest narcissistic score result from thistest?
Three,two,one,Steve.
What? Oh mygosh, you're probablyright.
Oh, thankyou,gentlemen.
I didn't hear my name comeup.
Sowhat?Yeah, you shouldn't sayit.
I guess it was outof, it was out of40,correct?
Yes.Yeah, I got 11 out of40.
So that's basically25%narcissists.
But the good newsis, according to that internetwebsite, I'm still quote unquote low risk for being anarcissist.
But myfriend, you're already up to the second level of being a narcissist barely into the second level to befair.
I'm at the same level of use low risk of beingnarcissistic, but I'm having the score ofseven.
Yeah, so I think that's thedifference.
I would like toattitude.
I would liketo. So we aredifferent.
We're in the differentcamps.
Yeah, you should is in the lowest band ofnarcissists.
Okay. And I was one point higher than youshouldn't.
So I was eight out of40. I was the highest in thegroup, but we're all still in the pretty healthyzone, Iguess.
Why do I have a feeling I'm going to hear about this in the future from both ofyou?
It's fun to take those little on online quizzes sometimesthough,right?
It isabsolutely. Andwell, I suppose hang out with us three easyPC.
We are not tooself-absorbed, nor would we do anyharm.
Well, if we wereself-absorbed, we wouldn't even knowit.
Wouldwe?Oh, that's thething.
That's thething. And I don't know if it's good to bring thisup, but you know for people who do jobsin, let'ssay, under thespotlight, maybe social media influencers or let's say TVpersonalities, one might argue that you kind of need to be maybe a mid to high level narcissist to really succeed because you've got to sort of enjoy the spotlight and enjoy all eyes onme.
Let me perform on the star of the show kind ofmentality.
And Imean,okay, this is a little bit of arevelation, Isuppose.
And that's why I enjoy podcasting and radio so much because I think that anonymity and comparison tothat.
And youknow, just not having eyes on you all the time and having to sort of put on a show all thetime, I think is actually something really beautiful about what wedo.
Media personalities often share thatsentiment, Ithink.
You mean that TV personality media personalities might be on a differentlevel, but I think it might be more on a similar level than we then werealize.
Okay. I think youknow, there are trade-offs associated with these kind of traits because we can see characters like Tony Stark from Marvel Universe who embody both positive and negative aspects of these kind ofnarcissism.
Youknow, these kind of person may be avery, very successfulperson, but such individuals can also be internallyfragile,meeting, youknow, constant affirmationto, Ithink, satisfy their ego to maintain their inner standards of being perfect or maybe they don't know they're beingnarcissistic.
Yeah, he is one of my super heroes that I hate themost.
I like him the mostactually.
Don't at mepeople.Sorry, we're entitled to our own appreciation of superheroes.
Okay. It was wrong withiron,man.
We'll save that for anotherday.
Yeah, let's talk about this with the micoff, Iguess.
I know he's superpopular, but I guess it's just too bombastic and for anybody in thisworld, Ifeel.
Obviously, Tony Spark is a fictionalcharacter.
Sorry to press that bubble for somepeople, I don'tknow.
So I suppose there's in the sameperson, they inhibitthis, youknow, extreme ego as well as extremeinsecurity.
And then it's just very difficult to dealwith, Isuppose.
Okay, let's break it down to twoscenarios.
When you are anarcissist, how should other people deal withyou?
How do you interact with theworld?
And the second scenario is when you are dealing with anarcissist, what do youdo?
Do you just walkaway? I would dothat.
What do you guysthink? Youshould.
What I saw is that show us why your score is solow.
I think a lot of people who are being caughtpeople, please don't have these kind of issue because they want others to like them and they will care too much about othersfeelings.
That's a little bit similar to somebody who isnarcissistic, but that's another extremeway, Ithink.
They want to pleaseothers.
They want to beliked. And that is also not a positiveextreme, I wouldsay, but at least when you are thinking a lot aboutothers, I think that is a way to deal with you beingnarcissistic.
But you have to have that self awarenessthough.
And if you have that selfawareness, then you probably don't qualify asnarcissistic,right?
So toanswer, maybe I forget which was part one or parttwo, butanyway, if you're anarcissist, how to deal with otherpeople?
I don't think narcissists think about how to deal with otherpeople.
I think they just do what they do and let other people worry aboutit.
How should you deal with a person who's a narcissist in yourlife?
That's a greatpoint. You make there a solutionabout, youknow, if you're a peoplepleaser, if you're a yesperson, you probably get along quitewell, maybe with a narcissist because that pleasing other people gives you some sort ofsatisfaction.
But maybe with anothernarcissist, sorry tointerrupt, with anothernarcissist, twotogether, probably not going to be greatfriends, I wouldthink.
And forpeople,please, there's also that problematic in its ownway.
You would feel that the narcissistic person is absorbing so much of your energyaway.
And I would think that you feel so bad at the end of theday.
Andyeah, like feelexhausted.
Yeah,because, youknow, your thunder has been stolen by other people and then it's used to sort of empowerthem.
And it's just a terrible place tobe.
So for individuals who are dealing with anarcissist, should you try to establishboundaries?
Should you try to have a conversation and persuade them that making compromises is a rule of life or or maybe push them to apsychiatrist, but I don't even think that isdoable.
I think it has to be taken on a case by casebasis,right?
If this is a close personal friend ofyours, perhaps it's worth aconversation.
Or a familymember, but if this is a person that you deal withprofessionally, maybe it's better not to address thesituation, just be aware ofit, be aware of the qualities that that personexhibits.
And when you're aware of that person'squalities, I think it will make it a little bit easier to deal with that type of person on a dailybasis.
But don't I wouldn't this just be my personaladvice.
Don't try to step out andsacrifice, youknow, your career just for the sake of trying to fix anarcissistic, youknow, team managers or something likethat.
You can control youractions, not theirreactions.
So maybe be prepared to walk away and set boundaries ifnecessary.
It's one of my favorite things about life that I always remind myselfof, you cannot control the chaos aroundyou.
You can only control how you react to that chaos and narcissisticpeople.
Sometimes they are that chaos in yourlife,right?
Right. And for most people and most casescenarios, there's a wayout.
So I'd say I just leave them up thedoor.
Find thedoor.Yeah. But if let's say your close family member isnarcissistic, then it might be a little bit more difficult to dealwith.
And like Isaid, probably worth a conversation if that's the case or I mean sometimes I mean healing from the traumas from that is a lifelongjourney.
Butyeah, there are some of these really complex situations when dealing with folks with these different personalities and extremepersonalities.
And I hope our show offers you a little bit of relief as well as maybe starting points and doing your own research and dealing with all these different curve balls that life throws atyou.
That brings us to the end of today's roundtable.
Thank you somuch. Steve Hatherley and you should for joining thediscussion.
