Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that _time_ is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact, this difficulty to realise the _factor of time_ is an extremely common one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults, they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most essential differences between the two is this _time factor_. It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism. FOOTNOTE: [6] It may be of interest to readers to know that this physical over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this particular lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis. CHAPTER IX RATIONALIZATION Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this. Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest comforter, yet our worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means “_finding apparently adequate reasons for things_.”