People feel insignificant and inferior when they compare themselves to other, more successful, people. They make an attempt to ‘fit-in’ and ‘follow the crowd’ in the hope that people will like them, but they continue to dwell on all of the bad things that happen in their lives without realising that most other people lead equally unfulfilled lives, have feelings of inferiority, mediocrity and insignificance, and, in order to be liked, they put on a false front or adopt a pseudo-personality, to boost their own self-esteem in the hp order to make others believe that they’re doing better than they are. Ultimately insignificance is linked to an overwhelming feeling of a lack of importance.
Everybody, I don’t care who they are, has a desire to feel important. When you look at an old photograph of yourself within a group of people, who do you look for first? – You. Who do other people look for first? – Them. People aren’t interested in you, they’re not interested in me, they’re interested only in themselves. The need to feel important is as vital as the need for food or shelter. When people are ignored, overlooked or rejected, they begin to feel worthless, insignificant, inferior and unimportant. People have even gone insane (literally, locked away inside mental institutions) for this very reason. In others, this feeling has become so intense that they have turned up for school or college one day with a shotgun and blasted into oblivion those who made them feel this way. Many serial or spree killers started out this way believing that the notoriety gave them a sense of importance.
The key to overcoming feelings of insignificance and lack of importance or respect, is fairly simple and is achieved by recognising the desire that others have to feel important and playing on those feelings (I know it sounds as though you’re going to be putting yourself down, but quite the reverse happens).
Find out what makes another person tick, find out their interests, and be genuinely interested in that person and those interests (even if they sound dull and boring). Be agreeable, ask questions and take a genuine interest in what it is that makes that other person feel happy or fulfilled (“Oh you’re a Buddhist, I don’t know a lot about that…Is it really? I never knew that….What would happen if… etc.) Be sincere and don’t use flattery (people can see through flattery). Learn their first name and use it often. All of these things make that other person feel important. Something else then begins to happen – when you start focusing on other people and becoming genuinely interested in them, you forget about your own negative feelings. Secondly, other people begin to take an interest in you, your life and what makes you tick. Without knowing it, your feeling of importance increases and your feelings of mediocrity diminish. You feel happy again. Others see YOU as important, because you make THEM feel important (without even knowing it).
If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself – but you must be genuine and sincere.
If you have never read “How to win friends & influence people” by Dale Carnegie then read it, re-read it, or listen to audio. Even though this book was written in the 1930s, the principles taught in it are timeless and priceless.
Investigations 