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Some people seem to live at the centre of their own universe. Every conversation somehow returns to them. Every disagreement becomes a personal attack. Every success needs their involvement. Every problem somehow requires their presence.

They move through life believing that everything revolves around them, as though their absence would cause the entire system to stop functioning.

I call these centric circles of narcissism. The irony is that they may genuinely believe they are exceptional, but being exceptional is not the same as being unique. Every person is unique. Everyone has experiences, talents, insecurities, ambitions, and stories that nobody else can completely replicate.

Your uniqueness does not make you more important than everyone else. It simply makes you different.

The narcissistic mindset confuses individuality with superiority.

It assumes that because your life feels incredibly important to you, it must therefore be equally important to everyone around you, but everyone else is living inside their own circle. They have their own priorities, problems, ambitions, relationships, and internal conversations.

You are not necessarily the centre of their universe, and neither are they the centre of yours. Perhaps maturity is recognising that you can be deeply significant without being universally significant.

You can matter enormously without everything being about you because the world does not revolve around any one person. It contains billions of people, each convinced, quite understandably, that their own story matters, and perhaps the healthiest place to stand is not at the centre.

It is somewhere within the circle, knowing everyone else belongs there too.