Let’s celebrate people who think the world revolves around them

I used to live on the same road as a man who ran a greengrocery. It was a small operation but you could tell just by looking at him dashing around that in his head the whole world of that store and of the people who shopped in it, worked in it or supplied it, revolved around him. He looked quite stressed  and some of us wondered if he was going to give himself a heart attack one day simply because he thought the world revolved around him.

But his greengrocery was a landmark on the road. Every morning before any of us got up he had created a neat, colourful and pleasing display of fruit and vegetables in great shape and in great condition. Inside, his shelves were stocked neatly and well – he knew what his customers wanted and he provided it for them. The shop is long gone and I don’t know whether he ever got that heart attack. I know, though, that he created something of which he could be proud, something beyond the ordinary, just because he thought everything depended on him.

So this column is about people who think the world revolves around them. They get a bad rap – who does he think he is? etc. But we ought to acknowledge that a lot of them make the world a better place.

We’ve all heard of heroic efforts by fathers and mothers who think the wellbeing and future of the whole family revolves around them.  They act accordingly long after their children have grown up and wish they’d get over it. Yet these parents do, indeed, create the wellbeing and future of their families, and they are a secure haven for their children in an unpredictable world.

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In this context I was thinking the other day of a former Irish Times colleague, Stephen Heron, who died recently. Late at night it was Stephen's role to put the finishing touches to the newspaper the readers would see the next day and, more importantly, to make sure there would be a newspaper for them to see. Other people in the building had the same aim but when you saw Stephen in action you realised that he saw the whole enterprise as resting on his shoulders.

If there was anything not right about a headline, Stephen spotted it and fixed it. If the spacing between a couple of words was out by an iota, Stephen spotted it and fixed it. If a story contained an inaccuracy, especially on the front page, Stephen spotted it and fixed it. If a date or a fact about Northern Ireland was wrong, Stephen would swoop on it like his namesake heron swooping on a fish. He even keyed into a Psion Organiser, the first hand-held computer in general use, the dates of key events in Northern Ireland so that he had immediate access to them without having to leaf through library files.

Naturally enough, he got stressed out too. When a newspaper is on its way to bed, the discovery of a mistake or an imperfection is not a matter for quiet reflection. It is a matter for swearing out loud, taking action right here and right now and getting it right because you’re not going to have another chance.

What did all this achieve? Readers got a newspaper which was as right as Stephen could make it. What they held in their hands was a product of high standards cultivated by people such as Stephen who believed, when it was their job to believe it, that the newspaper did indeed revolve around them.

People who hold that belief can sometimes be irritating to those who do not. But when it comes to raising a family, running a country, driving a train, pulling a pint or baking a cake the world needs people who believe, wrongly, that the said world revolves around them.

We should have a day to celebrate them, only they would drive us crazy with the preparations.

So this article will have to do.

Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@yahoo.com) is accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is “Mindfulness for Worriers”. His daily mindfulness  reminder is free by email.

Twitter: @PadraigOMorain