Many of us view life like a seesaw, with ourselves on one side and the world on the other. If the other side goes down, we go up. Our most striking features are our bloated ego and insatiable hunger for flattery and superiority.

People seeking constant self-glorification/self-promotion/self-importance/ generally tend to disparage and humiliate others. Whether consciously or subconsciously, they feel superior only when they diminish other people. By putting others down, their own egos are by contrast inflated. They view life like a seesaw, with themselves on one side and the world on the other. If the other side goes down, they go up.

I remember a story of a broken home caused by in-law intervention. While the husband advised the children not to give up but help their mother when necessary; on the contrary, she did everything she could to poison the minds of the children; destroy his reputation by spreading vicious and venomous lies and false witnesses against him. However, we know that life is like water, it seeks its own level as it is the law of nature. If we stick to what is true, what is good, what is honest and what is real at any cost, we always prevail at the end. Many of us find this truth the hard way in our lives and in the lives of some people we know. The evil we do remains with us; the good we do comes back to us in many folds as life is an echo; what goes around, comes around.

Sometimes we may find ourselves bring inadvertently critical of other people based on their social or economic standing, or even  ethnic or racial groups. Perhaps we would do well to look into ourselves to find the source of these sentiments. Why in the world should we be flirting with mean-spiritedness and bigotry? Why should we be so eager to highlight other people’s flaws? More likely than not, these are sign of latent insecurities which mistakenly lead us to think we can secure ourselves better by undermining others. However, actually, tearing other people down only diminishes and demeans us, while looking at them in a positive light enhances our spirits and brings us the serenity and satisfaction of recognizing our own true worth.

Yes, life is like a seesaw, it has its ups and its downs, but our perception and how we take those ups and downs will determine how we react to them.

By Tim Pedrosa