Humble Face, Proud Heart

I once had an office assistant who was very quiet and withdrawn that he isolated himself from the rest of the staff. He frequently begged off from company gatherings, saying he didn't have social skills. At meetings, he mostly stared at his toes, disconnected, while others were engaged in discussion. He'd reason that his views would not really matter, that the others had better ideas.

Outside of his timidity, the guy was reliable in his job. He never messed up in his assigned duties. Except that he could only be given tasks that didn't require teamwork. But there was another side to our shy office guy. At home he was a completely different creature, always insisting to be consulted on every family matter. And his neighbors looked up to him for smart ideas on anything, being an active officer in their village association.

To a certain degree, we all suffer from a feeling of inadequacy in some aspects of our beings and our lives. One who is rather short will feel insecure in the company of tall friends. A stutterer will shrink in a gathering with good speakers around. A person who's poor in math will feel out of place in a discussion about numbers. This is normal. People feel uncomfortable where their shortcomings are exposed.

What is not normal is when people feel deficient when, in fact, they're okay. Chronic shyness, for instance, is not normal. It is an unmistakable symptom of inferiority complex. Often people with this problem won't attend a party or speak in a meeting. They will give all kinds of excuses for it. And they can explain why they don't deserve the manager's position or can't have a lot of friends.

Inferiority complex usually springs from a feeling that one is not deserving of success or worthy of love. It is quite a complicated problem (precisely why it's called a complex). While it seems a particularly personal problem, a great number of people actually suffer from it. It can hide under a confident face, even under the guise of superior posture. In reality, the problem can be much more widespread than it seems. Inferiority complex breeds restlessness. It puts a person in a revolving squirrel cage in which he must always run very fast-to get to nowhere. Given that, he is always feeling tired and frustrated, often deeply discouraged with life. He cannot be expected to come forward or to grab a challenge. In the process, he short-changes himself and his actual potentials.

Even among go-getters, there are people with inferiority complex. Their boldness is usually all defense mechanism, a way to hide or overcome their perceived self-deficiency. Their better side insists that, indeed, they are okay, and that they can win if they want. Upon this realization their inner insecurity sometimes concedes to the idea that, perhaps, they can actually win if they try to.

Sometimes this forced sense of self-confidence works. Other times it makes the problem all the worse, making people swing from being timid to being overly aggressive. When they don't get what they want, they turn apathetic, sometimes even openly bitter and spiteful.

Some people are creative enough to turn their inferiority complex around and make it look like a virtue instead. They make it appear like humility. But this false coping technique may worsen their problem, too. How? It can deceive them into thinking there is no problem and consider all symptoms as normal manifestations. It's not normal, not okay, not healthy.

Beneath my former assistant's outward humility there seemed a different truth. By displaying unusual modesty he also showed cold indifference. Many actually viewed him as arrogant, but they just let him be. The guy, they said, was overestimating his personal qualities. He thought himself superior to his workmates and kept his distance from them in order to set himself apart, to make himself stand out.

As in most cases of personality problem, the only sure and lasting solution is to address it at its root. The person must stop fighting himself. He must stop fighting beyond his endurance. He must understand and accept himself, to stop being disturbed by his own imperfectness. Kindness always heals, including kindness to oneself.

There is no need to lie or to bluff. Neither to feel sorry nor to boast about oneself. True self-confidence does not grow in an environment of deception. And cowing out is never a solution-he who turns away from life is a sure loser. On the other hand, the person who boasts is often only trying to sell himself a mental escape from his own difficult reality.

The person is okay, who makes himself feel okay. No one can ever be all things to all people all the time. For most of us, it is enough to just be able to walk or to just be able to talk. If one turns out to be an Olympic runner or a prized speaker, that's a bonus, a special gift. Those of us who will never be good politicians can just be good citizens.

The truth is-no one is totally superior or inferior to anyone else in everything. We each have our own worth, our own value, our own place under the sun.

It will help much a person for maintaining a sense of balance to understand that man is not created to be perfect. That it is enough to just be the best that he can be-whatever that is. And that other people, the good ones and the bad alike, are there to help make him become just that.