“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” –Johann Wolfgang
Von Goethe
Love is a powerful emotion that should be reserved for God and for other people. When we love God and other people, we can receive love as well as give it. But material possessions can never return our love.
One thing that we can be sure of is that although God does want us to love ourselves as well as others, He certainly does not want us to love only ourselves to the exclusion of others. People with the narcissistic personality disorder do love themselves almost to the total exclusion of others. Psychologists believe that narcissists are virtually incapable of giving love to others because all of their love is focused upon themselves. Everything they do seems to be motivated by how it will benefit them. For example, they cultivate a public image of almost perfection. They want to be thought of as extraordinarily wonderful people by the public.
The private lives of narcissists bear almost no resemblance to their public image, which they so carefully cultivate. They see their spouse and children as existing solely for the purpose of meeting their needs. They seem to have a strong need to gain psychological control over their victims. They rarely hug, or in any other way show affection to their spouse and children. In fact, they often treat strangers better than their own immediate families because of their need to project an image of perfection to the outside world.
Narcissists usually gain a high degree of psychological control over their victims and are verbally abusive to the point of destroying the self-confidence of their victims. They don’t view the world like normal people. They are preoccupied with their public image, and will often go to great lengths to preserve and enhance that image. Author and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck refers to narcissists as people who have no particular desire to be good, but who have an enormous desire to be thought of as good.
We must all guard against any narcissistic tendencies that we might have. We are all born with narcissistic tendencies. A small infant focuses its attention on getting its needs met. When it is hungry, it cries. When it needs to have its diaper changed, it cries. The child soon learns that it has a great deal of control over its parents, and may develop the habit of crying whenever it wants anything. But as the infant matures it begins to realize that other people have needs, too, and little by little it learns to care about the needs of others. Adult narcissists are people who have never matured emotionally to the point of caring about others. In some ways, they are like two-year-olds who have temper tantrums whenever things do not go their way. We must all grow up emotionally as well as physically.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2026
Allen W. Smith
