RULE TO BREAK

‘What about me?’

You see the world from your own perspective – of course you do. What can be harder to recognise is that not everyone else does. When you’re a little kid, most of the people in your world are focused on you a lot of the time. But when you grow up, you have to recognise that this stops being true. Otherwise you’ll become selfish and self-centred and no fun to be around.

When you’re two, you can scream when you’re hungry and someone will produce food for you. It’s not going to work when you’re 20. OK, so you’d worked that one out already. But there are other ways in which we can all too easily assume that the world is focused on us, when in fact no one else is giving us a thought.

I heard a kid at the school gates ...

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