See if you can tell what’s wrong with this conversation.

“How are you?” asked John.“I just had back surgery,” said Joe.“Oh, well I had my hip replaced last year,” said John. “It was awful.”“Yes,” said Joe. “My doctor told me I need to stretch and exercise each day.”“I had to go to rehab for weeks,” said John. “I still have trouble walking up stairs.”Here’s a clue if you don’t see the problem. Who does John talk about during the dialogue?Is it just me or am I the only one talking to people who make conversations one-sided and about themselves?If I was Joe, here’s how my talk with John would unfortunately continue. I say I just came back from a vacation to Florida and for the next 10 minutes John babbles every detail about his trip to the Bahamas. Then I say I cooked a delicious roast beef last night. He cuts me off to brag about his pasta recipes.Wait a minute. Didn’t he ask how I was doing?Finding someone who is genuinely interested in the well-being of another is like discovering a genuine diamond among a pile of cubic zirconia.Self-centered souls are everywhere. They thrive on Facebook. They control marriages. Even at the youngest ages, kids are screaming for attention.A New Scientist Magazine article says our country emphasizes individualism so much we are unable to infer another person’s perspective.To improve productivity, a Texas company told its employees to look in the mirror and say, “I am beautiful” 100 times each day.In Japan, a supermarket manager told his workers to look at each other each day and say, “You are beautiful.”Now who would you think has better productivity?Psychologist Mark Drummond says that our American culture insists we put our happiness first above anyone else’s, causing self-centeredness to become a problem that is increasing in epidemic numbers.“Self-caring, where you have concern for others, but not at the expense of yourself is much more healthy,” says Drummond. “Self-centered people are completely self-driven and are concerned only about their image and materialistic things.”Drummond also points out that many of our youth are ignorant to issues that affect our country because they become incapable of looking past their own noses.The Dalai Lama has said that self-centeredness will eventually result in isolation, fear and loneliness. “An extreme self-centered attitude becomes a source of suffering.”In Greek mythology, Narcissus fell in love with himself while staring into a pool of water and not realizing it was only an image. He was so fixated upon his reflection that he could not stop staring at it until he finally died.Psychology Today reports that narcissism is a personality disorder in which someone becomes angry when he or she does not receive enough attention. We are inundated with narcissistic individuals in professional sports, the entertainment industry, and even in religious and political circles.To me there appears to be a fine line between self-centeredness and self-love. We are taught that in order to love anyone else we first have to love ourselves. Yet if we love ourselves too much, how can we love anyone else unless they are gratifying our egos?Count the number of times someone you talk with uses the words, “I, me or my.” Overuse of these personal pronouns translates to, “my life matters more than yours.”Perhaps It’s time for us to confront the face in the mirror.If we don’t end up with smiles on our faces after a long, hard look, it won’t be because we don’t like what we see.It will be because we don’t like how we feel.Most of us have heard the expression that less is more.British novelist C.S. Lewis wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.”Seeing less of ourselves in that mirror means that we can then see more in everyone else.Write to Stracky at

katehep11@gmail.com.