Scratching the Rash of Inferiority
View(s):One day whilst I was working at a supermarket in Clayton, Melbourne, a good friend of mine came and said that he is in need of some money urgently. Since I was in charge of the supermarket I was unable to leave the premises. Therefore, I immediately gave my bank card to him along with the PIN number which you generally would not even reveal to your family members. I helped many people when I had money, but one horrific night when I was imprisoned all alone at the Narre Warren Prison in Australia, this friend of mine didn’t visit me even once.
People whom I considered as my friends who praised me as I was their Godfather, were not even interested in paying a visit to see me at the prison. These life learnings have led me to realise the bitter truth that I should never consider anyone a best friend. We are all self-centered, for all of us including myself our first interest is in us. If someone ask me “Mate would you die for me?” I would honestly say that I cannot, I have already got a lot of responsibilities on my own plate. The old brain is responsive to anything pertaining to self. Why? The reason is because it is completely self-centered. Consider your old brain as the center of “ME”, with no patience or empathy for anything that does not immediately concern its own well-being and survival. The sad part is even when we place ourselves first above anyone, we still expect others to put us before them. Therefore, unless you yourself become your best friend you will continue to live in a river of disappointments. Everyone is going to place themselves above you hence the possibility of you being overlooked and disappointed is going to be quite high. That is the reason I re-emphasised that you are your best friend.
The greatest obstacle a person faces in becoming his own best friend is the inferiority complex also known as the low self-esteem a person has towards himself. It is found that at least 85% of people struggle with some form of low self-esteem. Recently, I advised a mother that she should not scold her son so harshly just because he became the 33rd in the class. If you start comparing your children with others children and pass on judgmental negative criticism, there is an extremely high possibility that your child is going to grow up to become a person with a psychological condition known as ‘chronic low self-esteem’. If your son’s latest timing for 100 meters is at 12.0 seconds whereas his previous timing was 12.5 seconds, it is a good opportunity for you to appreciate him and cultivate self-esteem within him.
Yet, if you tend to pound his mind with heavy criticism stating that Usain Bolt ran a 100 meters in 9.58 seconds, you are destroying your child’s self-esteem to zero. Setting unrealistic goals and comparing yourself to others are the two main reasons that have created jealousy and bitterness amongst the younger generation. Unfortunately, they have been taught to measure their success based on their next door neighbour’s success. When I look into my son Joshua’s report my only focus is to compare his previous term’s performance, I do not intend to compare his performance with the performance of the best student in the class. There are instances where he scores very well and becomes the first in the class, yet my comparison will not be based on others but on him and his growth. We need to be wise enough to understand that children have different capacities. The egoistic mindset of many Sri Lankan parents have pushed their children into slimy pits which are murky and mire. Many parents are pawning their children’s happiness just so they could feed their own ego.
Theodore Roosevelt once said “Comparison is the Thief of Joy’’, it is indeed a profound statement. A lot of people are completely content with their single story house until their neighbour builds a two story house. From that very moment onwards they are deprived of their sleep. How did that happen? Their ego which was based on the comparison of the success of others, stole the happiness and peaceful sleep they enjoyed in their single story house. My extremely beautiful wife wore very cheap skirts when we did not have much money, yet she was really happy about it. She never grumbled saying that her friends wore expensive branded clothes while she wore cheap skirts.
Mental ranking is a highly destructive life practice that a person should never adapt to. Do not rank yourself or your children in comparison to others. It is always good to know the level of performance to benchmark, but it all depends on the personal capacities of each and every one of us. The reality is that there will always be someone better than us. Also, if you run after a false sense of superiority, your low self-esteem is going to run like a rash across your mind and paralyse your mind. I have heard many immature politicians say “Do you know who I am?”
They say so due to their extremely low self-esteem in education, professionalism, language skills, family life, parenting and other vital areas. Hence, they carry a false sense of superiority only through the area that they assume they excel, which is the power they acquire due to politics. Sometime back I completely ignored a corrupt politician during a speech I made, up to date he hates me as he was breathing a false sense of superiority.
There are some people who do not bath regularly but they use branded perfumes and smell good. This is exactly the nature of people who carry a false sense of superiority.
They attempt to camouflage all their weaknesses from one domain that they are slightly more powerful than the others.
A false sense of superiority will widen the true friendship you have with you. If you have a false sense of superiority, there will be a struggle between two people within your own self. The original you and the false you. You have to make a huge effort to maintain the false self-behaviors you possess so that you can put on a heavy makeup on your self-doubts, insecurities and sense of inadequacies.
Do not crave for external validation because if you do so you are no different to a man living on drugs. Learn to be happy with what you have and who you are. Happiness is not based on what you have but who you are. Do not fool yourself with the temporary self-boosters that others offer you, they are certainly drugs. Rather talk to yourself and appreciate yourself for the achievements you have acquired in your life. If you own a Maruti Alto appreciate yourself, as you have advanced from riding a motorbike to using a car. Do not condemn yourself because your friend has a Mercedes Benz.
I am really happy that God has blessed me with an extremely beautiful wife who is beautiful both inside and out, yet I am sure to lose my happiness if I compare her to Aishwarya Rai together with Abhishek Bachchan. Ego has the possibility to make you a fool. Ego purchases you to slavery of low self-esteem and a false sense of superiority.
Make a strong decision today to work towards becoming your best friend. The only person who will never leave you will be you. Be yourself and be happy and proud of being yourself. Fifteen years ago my wife and I were equally happy or maybe even happier even though we had very little money in our hand. We loved ourselves for who we were at that time compared to who we were previously.
We never hated ourselves for who we were compared to who others were. We danced at home and lived happy after a tasty meal of dhal and dry fish, we never hated ourselves just because our friends were having dinner at five star hotels. If you learn and understand this reality and abide by it, you will live a life of extreme bliss.
Therefore, determine not to scratch and spread the rash of inferiority, rather fertilise self-acceptance and self-love so that you become your best friend. If you become your best friend you will never be disappointed as there is nobody else that you need to prioritise over yourself as you will never leave yourself.
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