What Makes You Feel Important?

One day, a dear mentor of mine who loves me and cares for me more than I love or care for myself, asked me, “Seble, what makes you feel important?

Quickly, I started to respond by saying, “My family, my friends, my work, my…”

He gently stopped me before I could finish my sentence and said, “Seble, I am not asking you what is important in your life. Instead, I am asking you what makes you feel important?

I just looked at him, not clearly knowing the difference between the two questions.

He explained by saying, “The question, ‘what makes you feel important’, zeroes in to find the answer to those things that you secretly cherish and think are the things that will make you look important in the sight of people. It directly asks what buttresses your ego and most of the time people hide in their hearts the answer(s) to this question.”

He continued to say, “The answers to the question ‘what is important to you,’ are usually noble things that people are proud to tell the answers to anyone. Like you said, -your family, friends, work, etc.”

He then told me a story so that I can further and better understand this soul-searching question: “What makes you feel important?”

He said, “Once, he knew a young executive to whom it meant so much to tell higher-up executives in his organization headquarter’s that the reason every work under him was going well was because of him and what he alone brought to the table to those that work under him. As he climbed the career ladder, and whenever those executives were around, he used to make sure the meeting agenda he designed shone a big light on him. He mastered the art of doing that subtly, thinking his co-workers were not up to his shenanigans. He quietly also made sure that no one who was smarter or more astute than him in his team came in much contact with these executives. He even told fabricated and demeaning stories to the executives about these smarter teammates of him, behind their back. He safely guarded the light to shine only on him because all of these actions made him feel important and thought it would aid his fast climb on the career ladder.

My mentor continued and gently said, “Seble, you live in a world where it is an enviable endeavor to be seen and to be recognized as someone the world deems to be ‘important’. The act sucks people into its vortex and spins their life so that they can prop themselves up to be seen as ‘important’ people. Pride slowly consumes and blinds their every action and path.”

“Ask yourself of this question, at every aspect of your work and life, and when you find the answer(s),” he said, “dispose yourself of that thing if you find it to be something that is trying to get control of you and deceitfully make you feel important. For it will corrode you, corrupt you, and clip your wings from soaring high for it has its root in pride and not humility.”

“Seble,” my mentor said, “many people pass through life not asking themselves the particular thing or things that make them feel important in their life’s work or career. It is imperative in this journey called life that you stop often and ask yourself, ‘what makes you feel important?’ It will help to detoxify yourself of a deceitful poison called pride.”

Wow! Wow! Wow! The lesson was so profound to me!

Since then, at every micro or macro step of my life, career, and life’s work, I internally ask that question, “Seble, what makes you feel important?” And when I find the answer to be something that is trying to get control of me and deceitfully make me feel important, I quietly put it in the trash basket of life. The action literally detoxifies my thinking and clarifies my vision of what is actually important in that particular setting. This action has cleansed me, has sharpened me, and has helped me to make meaningful differences at work, in my career, and in my community, in ways that I would have never been able to do otherwise.

Do you want to make seismic and needed solutions in life, in your work, and for society?

Do you want your meaningful and needed light to shine so much that it will be seen not only from the farthest point on Earth but also from the furthest galaxies?

Do you want to soar high and untangle yourself from things that clip your wings from the inside and the outside?

If so, then do yourself a favor and ask yourself the question at various steps of your life and career, “what makes me feel important?” Detoxify yourself.