What's more important: being important, feeling important or seeming important?

Question

why?

Answer 1

Feeling important.

A positive self-esteem, and feeling that one's existence matters helps to move on in life effectively.

Answer 2

Being important is the greatest of all of these. To "be" implies that others have been impacted as well and are influenced. Feeling and seeming are self centered and therefore of little significance, being is fact. I can "feel" like professional athlete all day long, and not actually be ANYTHING. Being important requires no recoginition what so ever. People that long to feel important NEVER are!!! They're too focused on "how they feel" and their "self esteem." Go be important, perform random acts of kindness and mercy without taking credit or getting caught. Go help some needy kids out and tell no one what you did.

Answer 3

Alfred Adler, a psychologist that knew Freud said that we as humans are focused on two things, *belonging* and *significance*. I think he was right. It all depends on what the word "important" means. We need to feel that we matter to those around us. The way to go after that is connected relationships and making a contribution to your community, which can be everyday sorts of things as well as big ones. We tend to get into problems when we asssume that we have to be VERY important (as in celebrity or some sort of fame).

When we are genuinely important to those in our lives because we are connected with them that seems to be where the most consistently satisfying stuff in life is made of. Fame and celebrity can be nice, but they are no replacement for the real deal, as can be seen with the huge number of celebrities that are deeply unhappy or troubled.

It is important to BE important to some of those in your small corner of the world. It is important that we FEEL that connection at a gut level. I think SEEMING would fit more in with false replacements for connection like celebrity, being overly busy, striving for the top of the pecking order, etc.

Answer 4

I think feeling important would satisfy most people. Of course there are those who crave power and have the need to be important or seem important in the eyes of others.

Answer 5

Haha, I like this question!

I'd have to say it depends entirely on a person's personality. Some people crave control and might think being important is most important. Some people just want the benefits that come with power, or just want to impress people, and think that seeming important is most important. Some people just feel the need to be important, and are happy as long as they have that feeling.

Personally, I think being important is most important. What it comes down to is that I want to be in control of my own destiny as much as I can, because I believe in myself; it's "importance," or by one definition of the word, power, that helps you to do this. I don't really crave fame (i.e., to seem important), and don't want to fool myself into thinking I'm more important than I really am (i.e., to feel important... e.g. Donald Trump).

I'm assuming this whole time that importance is synonymous with power... I suppose that's not necessarily true. Of course, a parent is extremely important in the life of their child, which may not seem to have much to do with "power." But the influence you have on your children is a form of power in its own right, I would argue.

Answer 6

Feeling important.
As long as you feel important, you won't ever get depression or other psychological problem.
You can BE important, and yet there are some people who will simply disregard you and then you fall into self-pity.;
You can SEEM important, but since you're not really that important, then no one will pay attention to you.
But if you FEEL important, you feel that the entire world's beautiful, and as such, you will inherit a positive attitude toward life.

Enjoy Life ;)

Answer 7

Feeling Important

Responsibility is one of the top blocks in the pyramid of needs, but it does exist. When someone has the other more important blocks secured, (security, the second block) they will eventually move to higher blocks, including responsibility. Keep in mind that perception actually is reality, so perceiving (or feeling) important would be the most important.

Answer 8

none of the above is more important than the other. What's important is a little bit of importance to everything that you feel will make you enjoy life without self destruction or depriving others. I think that's the best answer I can give. this is a tough question. lol.

Answer 9

Seeming important. Then people will think you are important, therefore treat you like you are important, eventually making you important, which leads onto feeling important. Perception is everything. After all, you can't feel important if you aren't important and you can't be important if no one else sees you as important. I think that would just make you narcissistic

Answer 10

I would say to feeling important.

Being important or seeming important are based on other peoples opinions. Feeling it, is based on how you view yourself. We all like to feel that we are important to others but we would never know for sure unless they said so. But if we feel it inside ourselves than noone would have to tell us... :)

Answer 11

It's irrelevant which one is more important than the other because it is subjective.

When you are being, feeling or seeming important to someone else, you may not necessarily be, feel or seem like you are.

Likewise, someone important to someone else may not necessarily seem important to you. A fan may feel a celebrity was an important influence to him or her but someone who doesn't even know or like him/her would not.

A politician may seem important because he has power to influence laws but if it makes no differences to you, he's not important to you. Similiarily, a doctor may only seem important to you if it's your doctor or someone's doctor whom you care about.

Also, you may be and/or seem important to someone else who may not feel you are important to him/her at all and vice versa. Such as the case when people take people for granted.

Hopefully, someone is always important to someone else. ie. a child needs the love of his parents, a sick person needs a doctor to heal them, a person in crisis needs her/his friend, a defendent needs a lawyer, a student needs a teacher, people needs law enforcements, firefighters, city workers, etc.

If you're talking about self importance, that is also subjective. If you don't feel or seem important to yourself, you cannot say you are an important person and also others may agree or disagree with your opinion about yourself.
And if you feel or seem important to yourself, you likely believe you are being important but others may agree or disagree.
Still, none is more important than the other. However, most people will agree it's still important at the very least to feel you are just as important (self worth) as everyone else or people in general. If you feel more important than everyone else, you may offend or hurt others, be selfish and make enemies. If you feel less important than everyone else, you may be depressed, unable to take care of yourself, unable to pursue any goals and you may not like yourself and neither will others.