The Search for Self Importance

This is a great article I found on www.relevantmagazine.com - thought I would share it :)

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I had a Samsung Black Jack for a couple of years--the cute little red one. Unfortunately, my dog chewed on it one too many times, and some of the buttons stopped working. It did not receive emails, and picture texts were 30 cents each. My husband, who adores his iPhone, kept trying to persuade me to get one as well. It just seemed like too much work to me. Finally after my Black Jack had received it's last phone call and promptly died, I decided it was time to get an iPhone. After all, it would be nice to have all of those apps, right?
Everyone kept telling me, "If you get an iPhone you will love it!" I wasn’t totally convinced, but after a week of app-ing it up and texting pictures like crazy, I admit: I love this thing.

This morning when I was walking into the office, checking my emails on the elevator, I realized why people love the iPhone. Simply put, it makes them feel important. It makes them feel needed. It makes them feel that they are a supply in demand.

Think about the first people who started to carry pocket watches. These were the wealthy gentlemen who were imperative to society like the doctor and the mayor. Their time was so precious and their schedule so important that they had to have access to the time constantly. Before pocket watches, I am sure no one was ever on time. Nothing was pressing and no appointment was set in stone. But those people who carried time with them constantly--they were needed; they were important.

Again we saw this phenomenon with automobiles. All of the sudden someone’s affairs were so important that they had to have faster, more efficient transportation in order to get to their highly exclusive and significant events. I am convinced, that new technology is addicting because it gives people this false sense of self-worth. Any history teacher or stay at home mom can suddenly be the coolest and trendiest person with the help of that new great thing. Do you remember the first family in your neighborhood that got a desktop computer? Now they were cool.

On one hand, feeling important can be good for one’s psyche. It is the fake-til-you-make-it philosophy. I feel important, so I will act important. It is amazing what a little blind confidence can do for someone. But on the other hand, self-importance seems to be something swallowing our culture whole. Everyone wants to be famous. Everyone wants to be cool, creative, artsy. Everyone wants to have a blog—oh, wait a second ...

Everyone wants to feel important. I cannot accept this phenomenon at face value; I think this goes much deeper to an incarnate need we have as humans to feel valued and adored. Every person seeks to meet this need. Amazonian tribal members, who don’t own iPhones, seek importance through the acceptance and respect of the tribe’s elders. Infants seek to know their value displayed on their parents' faces and in the tone of their voices. And twenty-somethings with tiny seedling careers, like me, we seek it through the iPhone.

While the search for self-importance, the search for self-worth, can be extremely destructive when sought through artificial means, this ardent search is unavoidable. It is one reason why we get married, why we have careers and why we have children. It is our default setting, designed by God to make us eternal seekers for what is true, lovely and pure. I think God knew that we would, in a search for worth, pour our lives into our communities, into our children, and into others. I don't think it is an accident or wrong that we do this. Some people might protest that we should not seek to find meaning through avenues aside from Christ, but I believe that when our efforts are relational and not self-seeking, we find God there. One of the greatest surprises in life is when we realize our worth in Christ, and we weren't even looking for it.

by Kate Blackwell