Why is it good to be self-centered?

I realized a new fact of life while reading the famous book "Seven habits of highly effective people" yesterday. One of the chapters talks about different centers people have at different times in their lives.

The book talks about "money-centeredness", "work-centeredness", "power-centeredness", "family-centeredness", "spouse-centeredness", "self-centeredness" and "pleasure-centeredness". It also has a table with resemblances of people with these charecteristics. The most noteworthy point is that people with any particular centeredness get that aspect of life wrong!!!! Weird, right!!!

People with family centeredness tend to judge their kids and spouse very often. These people tend to like their family members conditionally and become emotionally dependent on them.

The problem is worse for people with spouse centeredness. When a person is dependent on the person with whom he/she is in conflict, both need and conflict are compounded. This leads to fights, withdrawal, aggressiveness and resentment.

People with work-centeredness receive all of their wisdom and power from their work, rendering them ineffective in other areas of life.

Pleasure-centered people tend to get bored with fun after certain point, interpreting all of life in terms of pleasure it provides.

One of the worst is friend/enemy centeredness. People put their enemies at center of their life and measure their enemies' wealth, character and other material possessions. They unknowingly let their enemies control their mind.

Self-centeredness is where people put themselves ahead of everything else in their day-to-day actions and decisions. They believe in a set of principles (right or wrong) around which they guide their complete lives. Since they rely on fixed set of principles, they also tend to become independent in their daily actions and have strong resistance to become inter-dependent. They restrain from empowering other people with their knowledge as their whole security comes from their knowledge and expertise.

People who are passionate, self-driven, principle-oriented tend to become independent and less interdependent. Resistance to become interdependent might hinder them from succeeding in professional life, but self-centeredness should let these people succeed everywhere else.

There are fewer things to fix in "self-centered" people than those with all other centerednesses. Next time someone blames you that you are self-centered, take it as a compliment.