Narcissism: Cheating Your Way through Life

I think this is probably obvious to anyone who knows a malignant narcissist too well, but it apparently gets past most other people.

A narcissist is someone who has decided at an early age to cheat their way through life.

Little children learn that looking good is easier than being good. Cheating for "A's" is easier than studying for them. Sabotaging your peer's work is easier than doing a better job yourself. The list is endless.

"Hey," the narcissist thinks, "I can wage a public campaign against sexual immorality all day long and go cattin' around at night. That way I get a saintly name without having to live up to that standard. In other words, I get to have my cake and eat it too. Who wouldn't do that? I'd have to be an idiot not to."

Well, that's the way little children think. Because nothing is beneath them and their minds are playgrounds where they unknow what they are doing.

Moreover, at an early age they also learn that looking good always gets you treated as good, but being good often gets you condemned as bad. Case in point: Jesus of Nazareth, condemned as evil by holier-than-thous (whom he had laid a formal sevenfold curse upon).

I know of a pair of malignant narcissists at a school who characterize everyone else there as "saps."

Indeed, who plays by the rules in a game fixed for cheaters to win? Saps, that's who.

This is why treatment does no good for narcissists and psychopaths. In fact it just teaches them ways to fake it better. They don't want to change. Why should they? Their strategy for life is much more successful than ours.

Since their grandiose egos lack even a drop of self respect, they aren't above it, either.

Kathleen Krajco