Why does people makes war, steal, lie, kill, betray, etc? If you were to point one reason that explained all the evils of mankind, what it would be?
For me, it seems this reason is called self-importance. That feeling that we, our wishes, desires and needs are more important that everybodys else.

Take the wars, for example. The usual reasons for war is when two (or more) nations wants the same thing (like oil, or land, or ideological/religious supremacy, etc). Then each nation thinks that it is more important that the other one(s), and that their own wishes are enough to justify to kill everyone who doesnt agree with it. Each nation thinks that they are the only important one, and the only one who needs oil, or land, or whatever, and they make war. And, what was the reason for the war? Self-importance.

The same thing goes to people who steals. They think that they need the thing they stealed more than its owner, so they steal. It also goes for people who kills, or lies, etc. All this evils can be tracked down to the self-importance.

Today the world is suffering from pollution, and climate changes... why people would destroy the very place they live upon? Cause they think its worth. They think earth was made for their own use (and abuse), and that they have the right to exploit it recklessly, only for the satisfying of their consumist/capitalist egoist desires. What is only other name for self-importance.

And its not only in this "great" matters that we can see the self-importance in action. Even here in this forums its a pretty usual thing. From times to times we see some people engaged in flame wars, pissfests, or trolls trolling around... why they act this way? Because they think only their own opinion is the right one, and everybodys else is crap. They think they are the only important ones, and that everybody else should agree with them.

Why people feels ofended? Because they feel they are so important that they cant afford to be disagreed, or called names, or whatever. Feeling ofended is only possible when one feels very important.

I dont remember where, but once i read that the most spoken word in english is "I"... i think it has something to say about how important we usually feel...

And this list could go on and on... almost every evil, every problem, every bad thing about persons or the makind can be tracked down to the self-importance. Its the mankinds and also every persons downfall.

Also, being self-important makes us vulnerable, predictable and weak. Why does flattery works so well? Why does telling some choosen words (that dont need to be true) usually ensures that almost every person will agree or be more favourable to us? Because flattery feeds the self-importance. So, whenever you want to control someone, to make someone bend down to your own wishes, flattering it usually works. In other words, most people can be controlled by flattery, or anything else which feed their own self importance. So we can easily see as having self-importance weakens one, and makes it more vulnerable.

One of the most striking example of it is women who likes rich or powerful or famous men. This men will do anything to be seem together with a beautiful woman, including giving her everything she want (sometimes this women can bring down a rich man to poverty) only for the pleasure of being seen with her, because it boosts his self-importance.

Also, self-importance makes us predictable. When we want to know how any people will act, we only need to think what they would do to maximize their own gains. As most people thinks this way, its very easy to predict how anyone will act. And being predictable is not strategically good, cause it makes us easier to be controlled.

And it makes us controlable. When we are bound to do anything to feed our self-importance, its easy to control us.

Who haves not self-importance is not vulnerable to such things. Self-importance is like a weight that makes us pinned down to the ground.

So, if someone wants to be free, to be over this things, one must lose its self-importance. One must realize that we are only one person among 6 billion of persons, and that we are not better than anyone. One must also realize that all of us will die, and so everything we are will some day turn to nothing. How many kings and emperors (who surely felt very important) lived, and now we dont even know it? They could think they were even gods, but now they are only dust. So what was the advantage in being so self-important?

The real wisdom only can be reached when we realize that we all are one, and nobody is more important that anybody else. When we realize this, we learn that cooperation is always better than competition, and that being unselfish is better than being selfish. The most wise and enlightened ones were also the most humble ones, cause they knew this. The real saints were the ones who were ready to die but incapable to kill. And thats why they were saints.

Self-importance is a monster that controls most of us, and decieves us in such ways that we think we are in control and we are only being proud or honoured or righteous. But we are in fact only being controlled by it. When we think we are feeding our ego, we are only feeding this monster, that takes greater control over our lifes.

Losing self-importance and thus being really free is very hard, but it is one of the greatest acomplisments a person can do. But as its hard most people just gives up and lives chained by this until their death comes, and then death, with its merciless touch, takes us and all our self-importance, and then we go back to the dust, that is where we are from, that is what we are, and that is what we will turn to when our time were up.
Coelho Reviewed by Coelho on . The monster called self-importance Why does people makes war, steal, lie, kill, betray, etc? If you were to point one reason that explained all the evils of mankind, what it would be? For me, it seems this reason is called self-importance. That feeling that we, our wishes, desires and needs are more important that everybodys else. Take the wars, for example. The usual reasons for war is when two (or more) nations wants the same thing (like oil, or land, or ideological/religious supremacy, etc). Then each nation thinks that Rating: 5