Website owner:  James Miller

Cause of inferiority feelings and lack of confidence

   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