The Unbearable Weight of Self-Importance

Our egos wish to maintain their sense of importance. Imagine millions of people living their lives with the belief that they alone are the Center of the Universe, where everything and everyone is evaluated by their agendas, their needs and their desires.

“I’m number one”
“No, I am number one.”
“You are both wrong: I AM NUMBER ONE!”

If there was someway to hold up a mirror so as to allow people to watch themselves as they go about asserting and defending their egos, they just may be instantly delivered. It would be quite sad if it weren’t so comical! But of course Important People don’t laugh all that much, especially at themselves.

Important People worry about their image. “If I don’t live in an expensive house, drive a luxury sedan and vacation in Europe what will people think?” It doesn’t matter that they cannot afford any of these things. It doesn’t matter that the weight of the debt is robbing them of sleep and peace of mind. Worse, it doesn’t matter that the expense of keeping up appearances may rob their children of a good education or keep them from ever using a portion of their earnings to help others. And herein is a major part of the problem: maintaining the image of importance is actually keeping them from doing really important things with their life.

Of course, sometimes people refuse to take Door Number One, not so much out of a sense of self-importance but because they make others Too Important. “My parents would never speak to me again, my community of friends would reject me”, etc. However, it is, even here, still a matter of “saving face.” What these people think, how they will respond, is the chief criteria for my decision-making. I must have his approval, her applause, their well-wishes – so I will not contemplate the road less traveled.

Important People are often “cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” (Teddy Roosevelt*) These people criticize and posture and pretend but they rarely, if ever, abandon themselves to the arena of achievement because, again, the prospect of failure—of losing face—is just too horrible to contemplate.

Important People are embarrassed and offended quite easily. As the Center of the Universe, they must be always treated in a deferential manner. Their feelings must be protected at all costs. Of course this means that any blind spots they have in regard to character deficiencies or a lack of competency must never be mentioned.

It is very difficult for Important People to easily learn new things. After all, Important People are already supposed to know everything and never make mistakes. But how in the world can we learn what we don’t know if we insist upon acting as if we already know it? How can I make the necessary adjustments in my behavior as I learn a new skill or different pattern of behavior, if I am worried about appearances? Important People must do everything right the first time or they feel like a failure. Important People do not see that mistakes or perceived failures are nothing more than the process of learning.

The Discipline of Death leaves no space for saving face. All that matters is abandoning myself to the quest of becoming who and what I was created to be: what matters is this moment, this choice, this attempt, this battle … understand?

The Discipline of Death focuses on the choice or the attempt, not upon everything working out “right” in the eyes of others. If things don’t work out as planned, this individual revels in having made the attempt, and in all that was learned in the process. If people think less of him for having “failed,” so what? We’re all dead anyway: some of us just don’t want to face it.


* The Profession of the Individual who has cast off the unbearable burden of self-importance and embraced the Discipline of Death …

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” TR

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2010