Socrates, the great philosopher was once asked by one of hisdisciples, “Why is it Sir that you tell everybody who wants to become your discipline to look into this pond and tell what he sees?
“This is very simple, my friend, answered Socrates, I am ready to accept all those who tell me that they see the fish swimming around or stones in pond. But those who see only their own image mirrored in the water are in love with their ego. I have no use of them.”
Man’s greatest mystery is man himself. The purpose of life is to have an ultimate knowledge about one self.
The positive response to our behaviour develops confidence in the development of our personality which is being appreciated where as negative response negates the understanding of one’s self and leads to feeling of inadequacy, discomfort, anxiety and tension. The concept of ‘Self’ is formed by behaviour of others towards one self. Whenever an individual interacts, there is a social self. The gap between the self image and social self, determines the effectiveness of the individual. The feeling of inferiority is rooted in the human beings because a man compares his “insignificance” with the immensity of the universe”. This can be overcome by developing social interest.
There is a saying ,“Courage is the health of the soul.” The inferiority complex can be overcome e by developing courage. It can be overcome if we are not afraid of making mistakes. Both making mistakes and learning how to work on mistakes, demand courage, which will ultimately improve both our social self and self image by reducing the inferiority complex. The process of self improvement calls for reducing the gap between social self and self image.
- Agya Kour is a teacher at DBN SNS School at Jammu, her email is Akr.sns@dbntrust.in