We all know narcissism exists in the world. But none of us like to think of ourselves as self centered or narcissistic. This is why something stuck me as I was watching the speech given by Brett Favre during the Thursday night football game on Thanksgiving between the Bears & the Packers. (for those of you who don’t know football, you might know Brett Favre from his guest appearance in the film There is something about Mary.

Favde was at the stadium to have his number retired and be inducted into the Hall of Fame. So naturally he had to give a speech. Durinig his speech, he thanked any number of people, and talked about all aspects of playing football. But as I listed to the crowd’s responses to what he said, a predictable pattern imerged: the times when they cheered the loudest were always in response to self-serving comments given by Farde.

“And most of all I thank you”    (loud cheers from crowd)

“The best place in the world to play football”   (loud cheeres & applause)

And so on.

It was like watching a collective mass of heads in the stadium become one giant common brain, and this brain seemed to be thinking:

• Hooray for me!
• Hooray for us!
• Two cheers for me!
• Talk more about us!

I couldn’t help but think of a stadium full of seals barking every time someone threw them a fish.

Sure, they may say we are not self centered, and we might even want this to be true, but our cheers say otherwise.