I would posit that in most cases it is not that one wants to feel important; it is that one wants to feel more important. More important or even most important relative to their circumstance and specifically regarding other individuals within said circumstance. This is a very narrow parameter compared to the more than 100 billion humans who have ever lived, the nearly 8 billion living in this moment, and the (hopefully) billions yet to come. But when one individual has the advantage of power in a given circumstance, and that one human wants to feel more important, it is often best to not only allow it but also to acknowledge it with understanding; which may look and feel like subservience but in actuality (I believe) is compassion. The bigger challenge is me having compassion when I also have the advantage of power. With the advantage of power, compassion, no matter how sincere, may look and feel like pity, condescension, and/or ego. Based on this premise then, if compassion is the desire to ease another's suffering, an individual wanting to feel more important must in actuality be suffering. Yes. Yes! But suffering from what? Fear? Rage? Yes! And the one in the position of having less power of course is suffering from having less power; suffering in any way the powerful deem appropriate. So, yes. We all, each one of us, regardless of circumstance, are deserving and worthy of compassion. Yet not all of us practice compassion; the powerful because they don't have to, and the powerless because they perceive it, so it becomes, resignation and/or subservience that is resented. Though I believe that if we could see past the real and/or perceived layers of resentment and ego, there is actual compassion, acknowledged or not. I would like to think it is in our nature. But unfortunately, today, our nature, our affinity for compassion, is in the back seat tongue-gagged and driven by powerful slander. From James 3:5-10: “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed, and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” And in Matthew 12:36–37, Jesus says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” I have taken to quoting the bible some of late because as Marilynne Robinson points out (in her 2018 book “What Are We Doing Here? Essays”) “…the groups who have been so successful at claiming Christianity as their own exclusive province have also been successful in associating it with intolerance, guns, and hostility to science, among other things.” And she also says, “Always, but certainly in situations when great things are at stake, it behooves Christians to think and act like Christians. This would mean practicing self-restraint, curbing our speech, remembering that our adversaries are owed the respect due to the divine image, which no one can be redeemed enough to be excused from honoring. Dystopian media arose with this Christianity of the Right. It would lose a great part of its market share if Christian standards were applied to its product, and then the atmosphere of this dear country would change in a week.” Today, the Christianity of the Right, the untamed tongue, the uttered words from which one may be condemned, appear to be one in the same. Today, our compassion is hidden beneath ego. Today it is more important to feel more important.