What person have you thought about the most over the past 24 hours? Did you dedicate the lion’s share of your mental energy to your spouse? One of your children? Your mother? Your father? Your boss? Your best friend? Nope. Not by a long shot. You devoted the overwhelming share of your thoughts to someone else:  yourself.

While counterintuitive, this simple insight contains tremendous explanatory power. Of course, we think about ourselves more than any other person because we care about ourselves, how we act, whether we’re fulfilling our potential, and how we are perceived above almost all else. As Montaigne quipped, “I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.” We obsessively reflect on ourselves because we are obsessed with mattering.