Website owner: James Miller
What is the cause of inferiority feelings, lack of confidence, inferiority complexes? This type of problem usually starts in childhood. What causes it? Who wants to be made to look inferior in front of other people? We all have egos where we want to feel we are equal to others. Who wants to be put down or humiliated in front of others? How ugly such an experience can be. Well, that experience happens to many of us when we are young and impressionable, when our personalities and characters are just being formed. How does it happen? It is our bodies that are at fault. They aren't what we wish them to be. They don't do what we want them to do. They embarrass us and cause us mortification. We are all stuck with the bodies that we have been given. We can't get away from them; we have to put up with them, no matter how much anguish and suffering they may give us. People are born with all kinds of defects of the body that can cause anguish and suffering. Some people are born with ugly deformations of the body. Some people are born mentally retarded (we are regarding the mind as part of the body --- their mind doesn't work right and humiliates them). Some people are born with speech impediments that cause them humiliation. Some people are just "slow" in everything they do and that causes humiliation before others. Some people tend to panic when put under pressure and their mind gets confused and fails them and causes them mortification. Some people are "slow learners" and that causes them embarrassment. Thus many of us, as we are growing up, come to realize that we have defects. And for some reason, it is just human nature for most people to be repelled by defects, be they ugly bodily deformations or defects of the mind (such as mental retardation). So if we have defects people tend to recoil in repulsion from us, to pull back and withdraw from us. The result of all this is frustration, anger and inferiority feelings. We lash out at the world in anger. We become hostile and introverted. We withdraw into a shell and lock the world out. Instead of developing open, friendly outgoing personalities we develop closed, unfriendly, introverted personalities. We have seen and felt the injustices of life at an early age. We have learned early how hard and harsh life can be --- how ugly and unfair the world can be. We have developed a pessimistic and negative view of human nature and of life in general at an early age. If we had been lucky and Fortune had smiled on us by giving us all the good things --- attractive bodies, quick and comprehending minds, and all the other traits and abilities that people admire --- it would be easy for us to be happy, open, friendly optimists. But we weren't. Instead we were given what is deplored and repulsive to others. So we are not inclined to open ourselves up to others, expose ourselves to them, trust them. If we did we know we would just be ridiculed, laughed at, mortified and hurt. May 1986
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