Egotism is the tendency to think only about yourself and consider yourself better and more important than other people, as stated in Cambridge Dictionary. Throughout the book When I Was The Greatest by Jason Reynolds, he writes about the main group of three boys, Needles, Noodles, and Ali, who gets into a flock of trouble. Ali generated an idea of entering the notorious party in his area and discover a way to infiltrate into it. In that small moment, he realized that they should have never gone to the party. Ali protected Needles who despite his efforts got unfortunately injured by having a brawl with a gang and Noodles stood motionless for fear of what was occurring consumed him. Sadness occurred later after this event for their own decision to go to an adult party caused plenty to occur. Jason Reynolds alludes the idea of how certain individuals create their problems based off egoistic actions: these actions in the future provoke feelings of grief and dread towards the creator.

Reynolds builds the book’s plot upon an egoistic decision created by Ali who is the narrator of the book. Ali before deciding to go to the party continued provoking Tasha to enter the notorious Momo party. She contemplated allowing him to enter the party and tested him by challenging his commitment after Needles was thrown into the mix which she hoped would alter his decision not to go. He continued to want and even went to agreeing towards this condition for his longing to be seen as a more mature person. (Reynolds 63 64 65) When finding out the reason why Ali wanted to go to the party, it deemed as an exceptionally selfish reason. He later realizes his egocentric actions when he registers that it is his selfish fault for choosing to enter the party which later causes his compadre, Needles, to get extremely injured. Needles getting hurt provoked Ali to the extreme that it affected his emotions to misery. The selfish choosing of the minor decision of a fifteen-year-old enabled the whole plot to irrupt into new sets of problems that started with agony.

One of the main characters, Noodles, create a false character to conceal his true self. He conveys more of a ruffian vibe to make it seem as if  he was a person who shouldn’t be gambled with. Noodles second persona executes self-centered actions which leads him to emotions of sorrow when he enters returns back into his true state. Reynolds wrote, ”The punching bag don’t punch back. But you can hurt yourself when you punch one, if you take it for granted.”                 ( Reynolds 183) This quote demonstrates that Noodles is capable to talk about being tough and creating nuisances, but once a higher force retaliates with a more intimidating power, he sinks back to his cowardly form leading to a form of anguish. The reason for his desolation caused him to drastically change his ways of switching his personality from true to fake. Furthermore, his narcissistic ways also lead him to enter a world of torment.

A minor character who goes by the name of John is the father of Ali the main character. John’s a person of acceptable intention, but he creates problems for himself due to his selfishness for the greed of money. John’s earns money by stealing clothes from department stores and selling them for cheaper prices to individuals in his neighborhood. He turned out to be a horrible stealer and had to get bailed out with the money that he received from selling the clothes that initially were intended for paying rent. He later ran out of money and decided that in order to get “ More money, faster,” he would rob corner stores. John’s actions got him caught by the police and nearly killed a clerk at the corner store. John’s ordeal with police caused his relationship with his wife to come to an enclosure. ( Reynolds 43 44)  John was entirely consumed by greed at that point in his life and the traumatic experience of losing his wife caused him to become filled with misery because of his selfish action. This one egoistic action caused great misfortune to John and to the loved ones who once surrounded him.

People with problems created by their own self-centered actions can further bring melancholy to the individuals who made the action come to life. For instance, Ali, Noodles, and John got engulfed in egotism which later caused a wave of cheerlessness to develop. Arrogance causes the blinding of the individuals who get engulfed into it and once these individuals realize what they have done it leads to a needed rebirth that begins with unhappiness.