Are you self- directed or self centered?

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   tirelesstravelerposted 11 years ago

   Are you self- directed or self centered?
   
   While taking a economics class the professor was talking about self- directed vs  self-centered.  In a free market people are assumed to be self-directed.  The example he used was Mother Theresa.  She was self-directed because she could have made lots of money lecturing and writing books, but she chose to work with the poor.

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   tsadjatkoposted 11 years ago

   Sounds like typical professorial tripe - trying to make an issue out of semantics. So who doesn't realize the difference of Mother Theresa putting her faith above her self interest - it doesn't need to be assigned a term to be confused with another term - "self- directed or self centered" who cares about academia's desire to label every aspect of humanity - for what? So they can make it a question on a test?  or sound intelligent when they speak of self centeredness? Give me a break, give us all a break...from professorial academic elitists - now tell me TT - this guy is a liberal isn't he.

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      tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually he is not liberal at all. Had a long chat with friends about this subject and semantics plays a big part in the question

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      tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have  gotten to the part of the class where he is going mathematical. Will get back to you if it looks like a ruse..

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   alancaster149posted 11 years ago

   A good example of both on one pair of legs was Winston Churchill. He was self-motivated - a variation of self-directed - in his political career.
   The only thing that stopped him being outright self-centred was his 'Darling Clementine'.
   Another example was Adolf Hitler - and Mussolini probably too, along with Joseph Djugashvili, alias Stalin ('Man of steel').
   At what level does 'self-motivated' become 'self-centred' and will the culprits take one step forward? All three would have told you they 'did it for their country', one being in the end a suicide, another shot and strung up upside down on a butcher's hook and the third died in bed. Churchill died in bed, too. He'd always been at the forefront, as an officer and then journalist in the Boer War, captured, escaped, became a politician and rose to First Sea Lord in WWI. Then the Wilderness Years - after 'crossing the floor', leaving the Tories to join the Liberals - before WWII saw him raised to PM after having been First Sea Lord again. He was back in the 'dumps' again after the 1945 General Election - but not for long. The Labour Party lost the next election and Churchill was back in the driving seat until retiring in the mid-50's to let his former Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden take the reins... Churchill was given a state funeral in 1965, gun carriage and all, eulogies and so on.
   He had a big ego, that's for certain. Nobody could pull that one off without real political weight, determination, you know. He was nearly out on his ears twice during WWII due to lack of confidence but bounced back and with Monty's victory at El Alamein in November 1941 he was 'on a roller'.
   However, memories in the Trade Union movement were long. He'd rattled their cages in the early years, especially the miners. Clement Attlee, a moustachioed lawyer with a Labour Seat on this side of London became PM at a time of post-War austerity, nationalisations etc that no-one expected from a Tory government. It was a landslide for Attlee's party.
   And why did Hitler and Mussolini find themselves on the losing side? Over-confidence and not good listeners. A mark of being self-centred, wouldn't you say?

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      tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Been reading about  Churchill.  He had an interesting life.  Born into royalty the men in his family had a knack for going broke.  He was expected to be royal, without  money to live the life. He wrote to support himself when royals didn't work.

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      alancaster149posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Nobility, not Royalty, his ancestor was John Churchil, Duke of Marlborough, raised by Queen Anne to the nobility for his victory at Blenheim against the French and Bavarians in the Seven Years War, (late 17th Century), hence the.name of his palace.

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      tirelesstravelerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I stand corrected.

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      alancaster149posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It wasn't royalty, TT, it was aristocracy. His ancestor John Churchill was raised to Duke of Marlborough in the Seven Years War at the time of Queen Anne. One of the dukes not royalty, some others being Norfolk, Westminster, Bedford, Devonshire,

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