How many people do you know who lack real empathy, pretend to be more important than they are, use arrogant body language, claim to be experts in most things, hate those who don’t like them, flatter those who like them, manipulate other people for their own aims, are hypersensitive to any insults but are always looking to insult others, exaggerate their achievements, and have trouble showing genuine empathy and only have a faked version of decency. This type of personality is commonplace now, and its becoming an epidemic spreading by the day.

Our society has increasing become narcissistic and having an over-inflated sense of self-esteem has become the norm. One has to only watch TV programmes like the Apprentice, American Idol and Reality TV shows to see the type of contestants. It seems at the core of the Narcissism epidemic is the fundamental belief that they are special or better than everyone else, despite being average on the outside they have an over-inflated belief about themselves. It seems that everyone feels themselves to be special, while there is a basic lack of any sense of reality.

Whilst in the past you can understand why a Celebrity might become narcissistic with all the money and lifestyle, what has happened is that the Narcissism epidemic has spread to all levels of society. It’s particularly apparent in the workplace in the younger generation where succeeding at all cost is the norm, and having a massive ego despite having a fairly average talents is just standard behaviour. It has become generation ME, where there is no sense of collective society or general working together, everyone has an inflated opinion of themselves.

Relationships and Friendships have become about what another person can do for you and to add to your Facebook Profile. Speak to those infected with the narcissism virus and they have no real deep opinions on anything, political ideals or beliefs. Life revolves around the next TV programme, the next time wasting website, people spend hours watching stars they are attracted to but in their real life their partners are not as attractive. They worship the rich and famous, or anyone who has more power than them. People mourn the death of a celebrity who they have never met, but would struggle to call their own relatives. They update their Facebook profiles as if they are celebrity and everyone is waiting on their every move.

The results of everyone being a narcissist is a slow breakdown of a society, where no one wants to work, no one wants to be part of a team, everyone is a self-centred Prima Donna. Our culture of Narcissism is fed with self- improvement culture which teaches us that anything is possible, and that all we have to is visualise this and be able to think positive thoughts, that bad things that happen bad are because we have negative thoughts, that we must have a overly positive attitude at all times and with a high opinion of ourselves.

Narcissist’s live in a fantasy world to some degree because in reality they are just average people with a very high opinion of themselves, anything which goes against them, which questions there high opinions of themselves. They over-estimate their abilities in everything, resist competition in anything they are not good at. They have the will to win and succeed at any cost but run scared when challenged at something they don’t want to compete in or where they can’t win.

The Financial Crisis was caused in part by the over-confidence of people buying homes believing they will always rise in value, and the banks who believed they were too big to fail and could go on lending out much more money than they ever had on their balance sheets. What is the Government’s solution - print money they don’t have and borrow from future generations, postpone the debt and let someone else pay it in the future, we now have fake money, along with fake friends, over-inflated and useless university grades, fake beauty and fake celebrities.

Although normally quite reserved, decent, and not so arrogant people are forced to use the same tactics as narcissists to get ahead in their jobs and life, its seems he shouts the loudest, or thinks the best of themselves gets the furtherest sometimes.