I had a very interesting conversation with a friend yesterday who is very intelligent and well educated. He suggested that some triathletes, many in fact are afflicted with narcissism. I was familiar (or so I thought) with the term but asked him to expand on his thought. He went on to explain that narcissism is:
“A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.”
So what do you think? Does this describe us? If it doesn’t describe you, do you think it describes other triathletes?
Personally I don’t think I am self-preoccupied, I KNOW I don’t have a lack of empathy. If anything, I have too much empathy. I am certain I have unconcious deficits in self-esteem. Don’t we all? What do you guys think? Are all triathletes narcissistic?
Don’t think we’re all narcissists. Having spent a lot of time in the gym before I started tri’s, I think that that’s where you’ll find them. The lack of mirrors will keep them out of multisport.
Seriously though, all triathletes I know are pretty involved with what’s going on in the world around them. Your friend probably sees the amount of time we put into our training and may not know how we fit this into our lives (getting up at 4:30 for an ealry run, etc) and that of our families/friends.
In some cases it is definately. Very few make a living at this. So why do the rest do this? For the betterment of mankind and to bring peace to the world? Unfortunately, I think not. It’s strictly a self absorption but is also a matter of degree. When tri becomes more important than family, career, or when skipping a workout is stressful then it’s a problem. When you have no other outside interests or if your only friends are also tri-geeks than it’s time for a serious self examination. Fortunately, most people in the sport have a grip on it and realize that it’s mostly about fun, fitness and good company.
How many people actually negotiate their training time with their spouses? or partners, girlfriends, boyfriends etc etc…Lots I suspect.
What sort of hobby actually requires that you do this on a permanent basis? Triathlon.
If you dont see your own level of self absorbtion you are in denial, as to lack of empathy, thats clearly shown daily in the training routines…“…but I have to do 10k tonight” or “…yes I do need to do a 100 saturday am and sunday am” little negotiating room is left open to start with…
Triathletes are inherently extremely self absorbed and unsympathetic to those that do not share the same ideals / hobbies.
All of us are trying to fill the God shaped hole in each of us. Some will sit at the bar for hours, go shopping, others will go fishing or zone out all night in front of the Sony alter. This sport is better than most diversions for health reasons, stress outlet etc. Even though alot of it is “selfish time” I find I have alot more concern and compasion as the suffering really makes me appreciate the fact that I can turn it off at anytime and many among us can’t.
Perhaps many quit their passions once they sort out the ghosts, I think the majority give up and join ranks with the living dead, buried in their jobs, trading in living for motorized coffins. Most people I know barely have a pulse and accuse me of being bazare. Either end of this is not the best but I’d rather be at this end.
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I stumbled across this great book that puts it al in perspective. Jim Loehr trains athletes bodies AND minds. To parpahase a section I have recounted often…There are 24 hours in a day,… period. Lance armstrong does not have a magic rabbits foot he can rub to get 25 hours to cheat the rest of us! When you hear someone say “I don’t have time for …” it simply means " I value X, more highly than I value Y, so I choose to spend my time doing X until such time that I value Z more than X." I don’t rot in front of a tv for 2 hours each night because I value the time I get to think deeply about my day while swimming 2000 yards at the gym. I’m not self absorbed, I’m self actulallizing!
That was my exact point. All these me…me…me…me…me…me…me type “success” books, videos, seminars, tapes, etc. If that ain’t narcissism then will somebody please explain what is.
I think many of us start doing tri’s to improve ourselves, and it becomes an addiction. But striving to be better is not narcissism.
This is one facet of a HUGE problem with society today. If I want to sit on the couch, eating cheezy puffs and watching Jerry Springer for 18 hours a day on the TiVo, I’m normal. But if I want to look good, feel good, improve my bike split, and not have my f%$#n’ aorta explode or have my chest cracked open 4 times like my Dad, I’m a narcissist.
Sure, some triathletes are totally into themselves. But where do you draw the line between someone who wants to be healthy and has a competitive spirit and someone who is all about themselves? Are we insinuating that sitting on the couch is spending quality time with the family, as opposed to going for a run, or a bike ride?
I’m pretty sure that my wife likes the company of her not-quite-ripped, lightweight hubby more than she liked hangin with the Buddha. She’s even happier with my cholesterol, BP, and CRP numbers.
In re-reading the thread, I hit on something Tom said in the original post about the definition of narcissism. If narcissism is based on low self-esteem, this does not jibe with two facts:
Many triathletes are successful, driven people.(unless we assume that such people are masking their insecurities by having good jobs, families, etc)
It has been more or less proven that athletics improve our confidence and self-image.
Like I said, CJ is on the money.
If wanting to live forever is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
i’m in the sport so i can look at people and mentally say i’m better than them. isn’t triathlon the measure of a person?
no? what’s the deal?
i’m serious. i swear.
on a different note, though, i’m currently trying to come closer to narcissm. some facets of me are needing of so much acceptance, and i’m jumping away, or trying to, from them. the whole stuttering thing did it to me. so i’m trying to get to the point where i can say something to someone, which wasn’t the perfect thing to say, and not worry about it.
i can definitely think of it describing some, but i think those are the runners among us. those runners are a bad influence on us as a whole.
I wish narcissism was as simple of definition as was stated by your friend. It’s not. I believe it was marco16 who wrote in their post, “Most people I know barely have a pulse and accuse me of being bazare.” Well put… the point of the matter seems to be this.
Narcissism is relative. It can be detrimental and it can be positive. The definition your friend chose is the not so healthy version. It’s a perfectly Acceptable definition of narcissism if you want to define it in problematic terms. And, in most cases psychcologist’s attempt to deal with narcissism is in problematic terms… how else would they stay in business?
Perhaps what we have is not narcissism but rather an era of redefining benchmarks. Perhaps we live in world of declining expectations. Perhaps we who train for more than “normal” fitness are setting a new benchmark. Perhaps we are narcissitic. But most likely, we are simply defining life in terms that are compulsive in behavior but not detrimental in results.
Narcissism can be good and bad… it’s how it’s applied that defines it’s negative or positive implications. Your friend is right and wrong. Your friend was also incomplete in his understanding of narcissism.
is it a virtue to be absorbed in judge judy or queer eye instead of with exercise? imagine if we took 50% of america’s TV time and converted it into outdoor play. we’d be considered the self-absorbed capital of the world. instead, a subsection of america, triathletes, are called self-absorbed, but only by those who compete for a triathlete’s free time. if it’s only those who’re addicted to bachelor joe (or whatever it’s called) that think i’m self-absorbed, then they can think what they want.
if triathletes didn’t get things done, that’s one thing. but they get more done than your average bear. triathletes as a group are quite productive, both in GNP and as family men/women, and that’s the test. a civilization gets into trouble, i suspect, not when its people are self-absorbed, but when they’re unabsorbed.
spouses, well, that’s another thing. but i don’t think it’s always an issue of self-absorption. i can’t speak for every family, but i rather wonder how many angry spouses are angry because they are unabsorbed with anything, and their husbands/wives are consequently drafted into the role of entertainer. call me self-absorbed, but i’ve only got so much time i’m willing to spend as an entertainer.
as long as it’s not destructive, i’ll take self-absorption all day long. the flip-side of self-absorption is joseph campbell’s “follow your bliss.”
That last post cracked me up!
I know I lack empathy. I worked cardiac rehab, had people die on me, had lunch right after with no second thoughts to the fact somebody just died. It was just part of the job and maybe it was self confidence that I did all I could and that persons time was up.
One has to be somewhat selfish in this sport. How is that different from my lawyer friend who bills 3000+ hrs/year working M-Sat no matter what.
Is there some addiction part to it? Probably. Everybody has an addiction or two. If you can keep your life balanced, not screw up family or work I’d saythings are moving along rather well.
William Butler Yeats described the topsy turvy world we live in best when he wrote:
“The best lack all conviction
while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
I mean, it doesn’t get any clearer than that, even 70 years after those words were written.
On that note, I like throwing myself into something in order to see where it will take me, and to see how deep I can go. Whether it’s love, friendship, poetry, music, philosophy or my job, I like to do it the best that I can or there’s no reason to get involved. That great frenchman Michel Foucault talked about “limit experiences” where we push the envelope of what we thought our boundries were to the point where we find a new self with suprisingly wider sense of the reality around us (and within). I’d rather have experiences of heightened new awareness(es) whether they be with my wife, my friends and family, sitting at my deskin my study, or in triathlon. Perhaps we’re all like Odysseus, going on our journey and testing the limits of our love and conviction along the way. That’s the good life, not narcissim.
4 entries found for narcissism. nar·cis·sism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (närs-szm) also nar·cism (-szm) n. Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit. A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem. Erotic pleasure derived from contemplation or admiration of one’s own body or self, especially as a fixation on or a regression to an infantile stage of development. The attribute of the human psyche charactized by admiration of oneself but within normal limits.
As others have said, this definition can be broadly applied to just about anyone to some degree or another, especially the unconscious deficits of self-esteem. When I first got off the couch and started exercising 3 years ago I weighed about 50 pounds more than I do right now. My exercise was limited to sprints to the fridge for beer. My self-esteem was definitely lower then that is is now, after just having done my first IM. Does that make me more or less narcissistic now? Yes, I feel better about myself, but I also feel that I’m a better husband and father because I now have a balance between meeting the needs of my wife and son, and meeting my own needs. In the end I think it’s that balance that differentiates a narcissist from a healthly individual. There are definitely “negotiations” from time to time regarding race schedules, training time, etc, but negotiation implies communication. The alternative is resentment because there is no dialogue about each individual’s needs.
I have found that quite a few triathletes are jerks, or at least they act that way at races. Way more than, say, runners. Maybe that’s what he was getting at.
Which other sport has an underwear run? And isn’t the underwear run an attempt to mock the admiration some triathletes have for their own body by walking around in a speedo all day during race week, whether they are shopping at the supermarket or going to church (come to think of it, the only time some are not just wearing a speedo is when they swim, in the case they use a wetsuit).
So I would conclude that triathlon has both a fairly high incidence of narcisists as well as people who mock narcisists. Maybe that’s what makes triathlon so successful as a community, it is an extremely individual sport where you get to be a member of one of these two teams
Erotic pleasure derived from contemplation or admiration of one’s own body or self, especially as a fixation on or a regression to an infantile stage of development.
oh yeah thats me. wait, someone explaine what this means again to me
“Perhaps we’re all like Odysseus, going on our journey and testing the limits of our love and conviction along the way. That’s the good life, not narcissim.”
you nailed it, tripoet. the degree that you, or i, are driven, intense, passionate, and exhibit some sense of dedication and discipline, is the degree to which those who don’t exhibit that are either jealous or pissed off.
i think everyone has the ability to exhibit passion and drive. but only a few choose to. alternatively, they never see it in practice, do not know what it looks like, and their own personal light bulb never gets flipped on.
just because a lot of other people choose to live in a state of personal entropy, i don’t see the least need to dumb my own life down in order to make them feel more comfortable.
“I would conclude that triathlon has both a fairly high incidence of narcisists as well as people who mock narcisists.”
From my personal observations, nothing comes close to the narcissism seen in bodybuilding. And they all take themselves too seriously to have people within their ranks who would mock them. In general, triathletes are much lower key in comparison.
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( P ) Pronunciation Key (när
s
-s
m) also nar·cism (-s