On August 16, 2008 President Barack Obama said to Rick Warren,
“What I trace this to is a certain selfishness on my part… I was so obsessed with me and the reasons that I might be dissatisfied that I couldn’t focus on other people…When I find myself taking the wrong step, a lot of the times it’s because I’m trying to protect myself instead of trying to do God’s work.”
Mick Jagger has led millions over decades to say,
“Though I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried, I can’t get no satisfaction.”
Even Benjamin Franklin said,
“Who is rich? He that is content. Who is content? Nobody.”
You see, I am addicted to me and you are addicted to you. So in other words, it really is all about me after all.
Not only is MEdom my preoccupation with getting what I want when I want it, but it’s the problem of having what I don’t want—failure, pain, stress, loneliness, and insecurity. It’s my obsession with F.E.A.R. (Failed Expectations Affecting Reality)—being dragged around by irrational beliefs about my world that I cannot seem to escape. Irrational core beliefs can cover a great deal of ground; from entitlement and greed on one end of the spectrum, to betrayal and abandonment on the the other end. The feelings generated by such core beliefs can range from ambition and jealousy to feelings of resentment, shame, and rejection, hoping merely to survive the pain and struggle. To believe in the lies perceived by my self-centered thinking is to live in hopelessness; either because I can never have enough, or because I can never get away; never be at peace. So I hope for something real; longing for something of substance I can believe in.
MEdom—my addiction to me—is at the heart of all addiction. Whether or not I am abusing chemicals or food, my “drugs” of choice may include anger, rage, resentment, revenge, money (spending), greed, lust, jealousy, co-dependency and unhealthy relationships, obsessive control, insecurity, lying, sarcasm, sexual immorality, worry, approval needs, perfectionism, self-righteousness; and on and on it goes. It’s out of (my) control, this preoccupation with dissatisfaction. Something happens, or something is said, or I see something, and my brain goes into autopilot. Thoughts react to circumstances and feelings react to the thoughts and there is nothing I can do about it, except…(write in your ‘me’dom “drug” of choice here). The sad and frightening irony is that my choices and actions only confirm the absence of power and control; to the point that I can seemingly choose to do right and good but then find that I cannot sustain even the will to do right and good on my own without help.
Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. James 1:14-15 (NLT)
“I can to some extent control my acts. I have no direct control over my temperament. If what we are matters even more than what we do—if indeed if what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are—then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about.” —C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
CS Lewis, a university professor, Biblical scholar, and famous author, understood in the early to mid 1900s that because of man’s MEdom condition, man was not in control over what was happening inside of him and her. Inherently selfish, he realized that it would require a power greater than himself to overcome his fundamental human flaw. Since then, science has learned a great deal about the automatic cause and effect processes in the brain that result in automatic thinking, which fuels selfish desires and motivations and drive obsessive self-centered thoughts, feelings, and compulsive (addictive) behavior.
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” John 8:34
Sin is the Bible’s three-letter word for our core belief of entitlement that rules how we think and behave. S.I.N. can also be interpreted as Self-Inflicted N-sanity that takes us over. Now we have a problem that we cannot solve on our own. We’re all selfish. At stake is our very life in the choices we make about what to do about it.
Continue Reading: Mind Games
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