The other day, as I sat in a cafe in Philly having no plans, I took out my cell and checked Facebook–my all time worst time-waster. Among a gazillion other posts, I came across one that snapped me out of my lighthearted mood: “Very hard to accept the death of a friend who was just diagnosed five weeks ago with cancer.” The sentence made my spine grow hot. A wave of fear overtook me. My first thought: that nagging back pain I’ve had this past month is probably cancer. This is going to happen to me.

My second thought: Did  I just make that person’s suffering about me?

How often do we do this? We hear about a tragedy half way across the world and then, make it our own. If a plane crashes, our flight next week will crash too. If a relative comes down with an illness, we immediately take a health inventory of ourselves. Me, me, me, it’s all about me.

This is not compassion, or empathy or sympathy, but rather, a form of situational narcissism. It’s not that you aren’t concerned with others’ suffering, per se, it is that you are overly concerned with your own suffering and how everyone else’s problems relate to you.

Enough.

This same type of situational narcissism can easily be applied to your toxic relationships. How many times have you taken his avoidance of you, or absence, personally? How many times did he say he was coming over and when he didn’t, you blamed yourself. How many times has she said she loved you, only to end up with someone else while you’re left wondering, “what did I do wrong?”

Individuals make choices, they have experiences, they exist. For most of their lives (no matter how much you’d like to believe otherwise) they think and exist outside the realm of YOU. When we write ourselves in to other people beliefs, actions, behaviors, circumstances and choices, we ignore reality and instead, opt for a fantasy world where we are the main attraction in everyone else’s existence. I have news for you, you’re not.

So? What is about you? Well, your perspective. Your choices. The decisions you make. If your partner is repeatedly choosing to make other plans outside of seeing you, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to stay and tell him to make more choices about you? To stop hurting you? Ignoring you? How long will you choose to live with someone who doesn’t make you a priority at least part of the time?

Stop writing yourself into other people’s script as if it’s all about you. Stop thinking that others are somehow in control of your fate. They are not. And just as my neighbor’s cancer has nothing to do with me or my fate, your PoA’s choice to stay home and watch video games instead of be with you has nothing to do with your value or your worth. You do.