Importance
Why does one think he is very important? What has one done to think he is special? One argument that might be given is that every person is unique and that's what makes him important as he contributes to society in his own way. I totally agree with one part of that argument i.e. every person is unique. But, do we as individuals respect other individuals' uniqueness? If not, then we have no right to consider ourselves important.
We develop this feeling to thinking we are important/we are the Man in our routine life because of trivial matters such as: working in the US, earning a few bucks more than maybe some other friends, having studied a bit more, having seen the world a bit more, et al. (These are just what might apply to me at the moment and this list is by no means complete). We are not even talking about feeling important as a result of some brilliant thing that we might have done like inventing something, winning some major award or having contributed something great to society (even in that case I would say that importance is being misplaced).
Why is importance bad (maybe not exactly bad but something that could be done away with at least from an individual's psyche and not society at large at this moment)? It could lead to something as in-your-face as treating others with disrespect, showing attitude, growing a big head to other subtler and harder-to-catch things such as lack of listening (not hearing but listening), gradual negligence towards other people's feelings, etc.
I should really be doing introspection to make sure that I don't fall in that category and that I am alert during my actions/thoughts and not let this feeling creep into me. And the only reason this should be the case is because I am not special and I haven't done anything to feel important in any way. People loving you and praising you is one thing and you having a clear and true picture about yourself in your head is another. Those two have to kept separate in order to be level-headed.
Why does one think he is very important? What has one done to think he is special? One argument that might be given is that every person is unique and that's what makes him important as he contributes to society in his own way. I totally agree with one part of that argument i.e. every person is unique. But, do we as individuals respect other individuals' uniqueness? If not, then we have no right to consider ourselves important.
We develop this feeling to thinking we are important/we are the Man in our routine life because of trivial matters such as: working in the US, earning a few bucks more than maybe some other friends, having studied a bit more, having seen the world a bit more, et al. (These are just what might apply to me at the moment and this list is by no means complete). We are not even talking about feeling important as a result of some brilliant thing that we might have done like inventing something, winning some major award or having contributed something great to society (even in that case I would say that importance is being misplaced).
Why is importance bad (maybe not exactly bad but something that could be done away with at least from an individual's psyche and not society at large at this moment)? It could lead to something as in-your-face as treating others with disrespect, showing attitude, growing a big head to other subtler and harder-to-catch things such as lack of listening (not hearing but listening), gradual negligence towards other people's feelings, etc.
I should really be doing introspection to make sure that I don't fall in that category and that I am alert during my actions/thoughts and not let this feeling creep into me. And the only reason this should be the case is because I am not special and I haven't done anything to feel important in any way. People loving you and praising you is one thing and you having a clear and true picture about yourself in your head is another. Those two have to kept separate in order to be level-headed.
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