All over social media, the girlies are talking about decentering men, and I have never been happier. 

Women have lived lives where from their birth, everything they do is attributed to a mystery man, they will marry in the future. The conscious act of not making men the pinnacle of our existence is exhilarating, even though we are slowly losing the plot.

However, I'm not here to talk about decentering men. I'm here to tell you why you should decenter yourself. You are not special and that is okay!

“What is decentering oneself?”

Decentering yourself is to remove oneself from a position of priority or dominance to give attention and influence to other viewpoints, concerns, etc. 

When a person centers themselves they are known to have “main character” syndrome. Now, I’m sure you will ask “Well, if I’m not the main character of my story, who is?”.

While I understand that is an affirmation to keep oneself a priority. However, If you are constantly the “main character” in everything that is happening in a universe filled with more than 8 billion people, don’t you believe there is a problem? 

Decentering yourself comes with so many advantages that makes it so crucial to be continuously buttressed 

“How is decentering myself important?”

1. Decentering yourself helps maintain relationships. When most people communicate, directly or indirectly, everything is about them. They lead from and into their own minds, their own concerns, and their own agendas. They do not listen to the other party. 

How will you be a good friend, a good parent, a good girlfriend, a good husband, etc, If something as little and as vital as communication you center yourself and don’t listen to the other party? 

Your girlfriend comes into the room unhappy and the first thing you think about is that she is “angry” with you. What if she had just lost her favorite pair of earrings that morning? 

2. Decentering yourself will make you realize a problem will always go away. Most people ask me how I cope with problems since I’m agnostic and I have no god to run to. My answer is always “experience”. Whether they are my experience or another’s. 

The universe is not punishing me. The world is not against me. If I’m going through a phase is because someone has gone through that phase and overcome it and I too can overcome it. No experience is unique to you. 

I adore the phrase “So we are all living the same lives?”. It is usually used when someone says something awkwardly relatable on social media. We see that no experience is even unique to us. 

What is difficult for you is also difficult for somebodyNo dey use emotion, better face your grind and make moneyAsake in Dupe

I love the aforementioned lyrics because in Dupe, the 5th track off Asake’s debut album, he reminds us that we are not alone . These lyrics genuinely changed my worldview on a lot of things. You are worried and crashing out because you cannot find out what to do with your life and you are 25. Has your father told you what he was doing at 25? You failed a class, okay, were you the only one who resat for the exam? We must constantly query ourselves to get back on track. 

3. Decentering yourself will help stifle jealousy and stretch contentment. I feel a lot of people are not comfortable with the idea that someone is better than them. Once again, I will remind everybody. THE SPIRIT IS ONE. WE ARE A COLLECTIVE. We were made to complement each other. You will always find someone better than you at doing something. You will always find someone who is prettier, thinner, fatter, darker, fairer, kinder, richer, more entertaining, etc. We must learn to align with this, instead of fighting it.

4. When you have decentered yourself, the level of anxiety you feel will definitely reduce. My favorite word at some point in my life was “Sonder”. Sonder means “the feeling one has on realizing that every other individual has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles”. That anxious feeling that everybody is judging you, looking at you, and trying to find something wrong with you, can be attributed to repeatedly centering yourself.

I had a conversation with one of my friends about body dysmorphia and she said: “Not everybody is thinking about you, so why the insecurity?”. People have things that they do with their lives, and people have active problems to solve, so to think that someone who has bills to cover is thinking about how your belly is so visible in that crop top is crap

5. Decentering yourself helps you to avoid foolish discourse. Decentering yourself is a consistent active self-reflection. I come up to you and I tell you “That lecturer harassed me” and your reply is “Well, he has been nice to me”. You don’t sound smart at all. 

This expands to other issues where excuses are made like “not all men”, or “not all policemen “. Turning a moment of vulnerability from another person into an opportunity to delegitimize their experience

It is good to note that, Decentering yourself doesn’t mean lowering yourself in your scale of preference. Rather, it is recognizing that in the grand scheme of things, everybody matters equally.