Today, when I see someone’s success or happiness, I am happy for them.  When I used to be motivated by superiority, I would immediately frame the situation in relation to myself, and find someway to build up my self worth by finding a reason why I’m better or finding a fault in what I’m seeing so that it’s worse than myself.  Having a superiority complex not only makes you selfish (which reduces your happiness by reducing good relationships, a source of happiness), but it also prevents you from being happy more often.  If you can only achieve happiness when you are superior, you are limiting your potential happiness by a lot!  If you can be happy whenever you see something good, then you will have a much happier life.

Where did this superiority complex come from?  I think it comes from society, media, the educational system, and your peers.

Society honors those who are superior, and gives them respect.  We place them in a higher social class.  This is fine, it’s how the system works.  The problem we interpret the fact that society doesn’t do the same for non-superior people, as that they perhaps don’t deserve it. We all crave and need some level of respect, for a life without any is a difficult one to swallow.  As a result, most people (since most people are not superior) develop a superiority complex to compensate for the lack of human decency given to non-superior people.  This results in a cycle of disrespect and superiority: the lack of respect causes superiority complexes, which result in a lack of respect given to those who need it, etc.  You can help prevent and end the cycle by preventing your own superiority complex and giving non-superior people respect as well: you are in charge of you.  “Be the change you want to see in the world”

The media does the same: it focuses attention on what sells, sensational news, or what’s important or necessary to report.  Many people mistakenly believe this as implying that the news that isn’t reported, isn’t important and doesn’t deserve attention.  It might not deserve as much attention, and isn’t as important, but it still does deserve some attention: you should listen to local news just as much as you should be listening to national news and international news, if not more since local news affects you directly, while national and international news are much more distant and indirect.  People try to chase superiority in this respect by trying to build themselves up to a “regional” or “national” scale–by building up importance and superiority based on reach.  This again wouldn’t be necessary if we acknowledged people’s existence and efforts more often, regardless of superiority of success.

The education system awards and honors those who perform well.  Those who are superior and deemed at the top of the curve get the best grades and the best treatment, as well as awards and bright futures.  To the superior, much is given.  What about the rest of us?  The system gives very little, usually criticism, why didn’t you work hard, why aren’t you as good, you don’t deserve as much, etc.  All this serves to teach students, and therefore future citizens, that only the superior deserve good things, and that the non-superior deserve mistreatment.  This is horrible, and we should learn that it is wrong and not continue to do it, especially after you’ve graduated.  No more comparing superior titles or levels of success on the corporate rat race ladder: you shouldn’t need it to be heard.  Let’s remember the foundational teachings of America, and treat all men equally when it comes to respect.

Peers, reflecting the values that society, media, and education have taught them, perpetuate this cycle of superiority.  Let’s work together to end this cycle: treat people with decency, respect, and attention, regardless of how superior or not they actually are.

Having a superiority complex creates thoughts and comments that cut down others and prevent or reduce their happiness, while at the same time preventing and reducing your own happiness.  Achieve Self Worth (click for how) and you won’t need superiority!

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Some people suffer from perfectionism, I am one of them.  Here is a list of problems that make sense within perfectionism, but outside it, make no sense.

• Never fail.  Perfection means all success, and no failure, but this is unrealistic.  It is unrealistic because, like I explain in my Life Education Curriculum post “Who am I?” that “Who am I?” is an incomplete question because it lacks context, “never fail” is a phrase that lacks context.  Never fail at what? When? For how long? How do you define fail?  If I hold a cup of water and I don’t spill it, did I fail?  If the goal is to pour the water out, I failed; if the goal is to keep the water in the cup, then I succeeded.  What is the goal?  OK, let’s say we’ve established the goal is the pour the water out, does soda count?  Is it only when guests are over and I’m pouring for someone else, or does it apply to all instances of pouring water.  To yourself, you will never be timelessly perfect: you will make a mistake, and it won’t be perfect.  The only real perfection you can achieve is with respect to someone else: maybe whenever Allison-John is here, you want to be perfect.  You define yourself now as what Allison-John thinks of you, not what you think of yourself, or what anyone else thinks.  This is delusional denial of truth: appearing perfect to someone else makes you perfect in their eyes, but it does not make you perfect in your own eyes unless you actively ignore and forget the times you made a mistake.  This leads us to selective memory: perhaps you only remember the times you did something perfectly, because that’s what you want to think of yourself as, so you ignore and try to forget all the mistakes you’ve made.  Now you can say you “never fail” because you can’t think of any time you failed! Within perfectionism, this makes perfect sense: you have achieved perfection.  Outside perfectionism, we see that this perfection is based on delusion.
• Never try again. It’s either all perfect, or, because of a single flaw, mistake, or imperfection, it is completely worthless to continue.  “If you ain’t first, you’re last” – Talladega Nights.  Many of us are programmed somehow, by our parents, society, teachers, peers, or ourselves, to be the best.  That if you’re not the best, you’re worthless, it’s a complete failure.  This is not true: we all know everyone fails.  Everyone makes mistakes, we just don’t commit the mistakes to memory because the successes are more memorable.  Within perfectionism, it is true: a mistake ruins the chance of timeless perfection, so to achieve timeless perfection we must move onto something else.  Outside perfectionism, we know that timeless perfection is impossible to achieve: the more you do something, the probability of you making a mistake increases.  Furthermore, outside perfectionism, we know that success is about determination, perseverance, hard work, and persistence.  Outside perfectionism, we know it’s stupid to think that we can start something, and instantly be perfect at it, and furthermore never stop being perfect at it.  Let go of timeless perfectionism, and embrace and accept the mistakes when they happen, so that you can learn from them and get closer to the more realistic goal of short term perfection.
• Either-Or Fallacy. At the heart of all perfectionist thinking is all-or-nothing thinking, also called false dilemma (both links to Wikipedia).  A perfectionist views the world as one of two things: perfect, not perfect.  Within perfectionism, this makes sense.  Outside perfectionism, we know that nothing in life is as simple as that, even though we wish it was: things come in ranges.  There is a difference between 1 mistake in 100 tries, and 100 mistakes in 100 tries, but to a perfectionist, there is no difference.  Since perfection does not exist in reality, perfectionism is a failure to understand and accept reality, a mental health issue that prevents you from looking at reality, which in turn makes it nearly impossible to make the right decisions because you have the wrong information to make decisions with!

By all means continue to pursue perfection, it is a noble pursuit.  All I’m saying is, you should know it’s limitations, and its nature: you should know what you’re doing from an unbiased vantage point.

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