Culture of Narcissism

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, having encountered a number of people who believe that God takes a personal interest in their lives and steps in to fix things or give them some sign of progress. (I never hear them attribute God's intervention to their bad experiences.)
If it makes them happy and keeps them sober, I'm fine with it. But it's interesting.
And I'm hardly immune to the underlying syndrome.

Studies reveal that most ordinary people secretly think they're better than everyone else: We rate ourselves as more dependable, smarter, friendlier, harder-working, less-prejudiced and even better in the sack than others. "The paradox about narcissism is that we all have this streak of egotism," says Mark Leary, chair of the department of psychology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "Eighty percent of people think they're better than average."