From “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life” by Richard Rohr
So we need boundaries, identity, safety, and some degree of order and consistency to get started personally and culturally. We also need to feel “special”; we need our “narcissistic fix.” By that I mean, we all need some successes, response, and positive feedback early in life, or we will spend the rest of our lives demanding it, or bemoaning its lack, from others. There is a good and needed “narcissism,” if you want to call it that. You have to first have an ego structure to then let go of it and move beyond it.