Last update: October 02, 2015
Once upon a time there was a very beautiful red rose. How pleased she was to know that she was the most beautiful rose in the garden! However, she realized that people only ever looked at her from a distance.
One day she noticed that, next to her, there was always a big and dark toad and that was why no one came to look at her more closely. Outraged by what she had discovered, she ordered the toad to leave immediately. The toad, very obedient, said, "Okay, if that's what you want."
One fine day, the toad passed by the place where the rose was and was surprised to see it completely withered, without leaves and without petals. He then he said to her: “I see you really bad. What happened to you?". The rose replied: "Since you left, the ants have started eating me, day after day, and I can never go back to being as beautiful as before ...". The toad replied, simply: "Of course, when I was there, I ate ants and for this you have always been the most beautiful in the garden".
The moral:
We often despise others because we think we are better than them, more beautiful or simply believe that they are "useless". We all have something special to do, something to learn from others or something to teach, and no one is to despise anyone else. Maybe that someone is a benefit to us and we don't even know it.
Traditionally, society has always been divided into classes and belonging to a specific socio-economic status has always been the origin of feeling superior or inferior to others. Although it is still quite common today to find those who look down on others, we must try to feel all equal and equally valid, nothing more and nothing less.
Knowing and enhancing our worth is important to feel good and balanced and to relate in a healthy way with others. We are neither better nor worse than those around us. Feeling superior is as big a burden as feeling inferior. These complexes are the symbols par excellence of insecure people.
To despise someone for feeling superior indicates an "inflated" self-esteem that is based on inconsistencies with oneself. It is a way of overcompensating the pain that arises from the deficiencies that one perceives in oneself, highlighting the qualities in which one excels or believes to excel..
Some of the characteristics of these people are feeling perfect, being firm in their beliefs, getting angry easily, being emotionally unstable, lying often (as I want to maintain a false image of themselves), being very competitive and wanting to surround themselves with people of status. , intelligence or lower abilities, as thus they can self-praise. As a result, they adopt bullying and arrogant behaviors, just like that of the rose towards the toad.
We could say that the superiority complex is the consequence of a wrongly resolved inferiority complex. It also usually occurs in the same people, but under different circumstances. It is quite obvious: if a person believes himself to be inferior in some aspect of his life, he does not need to proclaim himself superior for something he excels at, because reality will prove it right.
It is particularly important to underline this aspect, because we all have a task to do in our life. What we don't learn from those around us, we will never learn from anyone else because each of us, in his own individuality, is unique and indispensable.
For this reason, it is better to be a toad and contemplate what surrounds us by carrying out our tasks, quiet with ourselves, simplifying and enjoying our own life and that of others. To be beautiful or not to be, like the rose, depends a lot on what we give to others and what we allow them to give to us.
Image courtesy of machesini62
