Let me tell you all about it-- if you listen it seems to be all you hear. If you tell a story, if you say anything, to anyone, the response is increasingly (disappointingly) solely about the person responding. Understandably we speak from personal experience, and in order to get on a personal level with another person we share experience--but there are limits we can exceed, selfless boundaries we can ignore. So all we need to do is listen.
Recently I have began consciously noting every time it seemed "I was the only word" in someone's vocabulary. The numbers are astounding. So rather than dwelling on the numbers and never getting over what I found disgusting--I wanted to figure how how we got to this point.
I have come to a few different conclusions, one however, has struck me as most probable: Self identifying issues are huge. If you're not comfortable with who you are no one ever will be; how you inwardly feel about yourself is reflected outwardly, no matter how hard you try to contain it. The reflection is not necessarily performed in any melodramatic sweeping display, either, it can be displayed in simple mannerisms; it can go undetected if people don't know what to look for, or rather how to look. Regardless a reflection is apparent. So if you have issues with your person, people who know what they're looking for, know.
If you feel like you're worth something, but it's not any type of worth people can easily see from your surface, don't you think I would be a frequently used word in your vocabulary?
Nowadays-instant-gratification is an indication for what type of character traits people think they need to possess: blindly misleading, but blindly controlling. So back to my point--those friends we have, the ones who no matter what you tell them, manage to pull it back to themselves--they're the friends that I'm not sure we can blame for only having I in their vocabulary. I think they are just trying to remember who they are, and what they stand for. I think it is not the people around them they are reassuring of their worth, but themselves.
While their process is destructive, and I'm sure along their paths they've lost many, and have many more friends to lose...I have faith they will find their way.
