Self-importance
"Self-importance works against the reclamation of Knowledge because it continues to assert an idea about yourself that is not consistent or compatible with life. It continues to separate you from life and to make you the central focus. It binds you to your own dilemmas and prevents your escape from them because it leads you to become self-absorbed. It is concentration on the personal mind to the exclusion of life itself, and because the personal mind is inherently flawed and incomplete, its flaws and incompletions will haunt you and dominate your attention. In order to offset this, there are all kinds of demonstrations and expressions of self-importance. This is manifest in every aspect of people’s behavior, in their concepts, in their beliefs, in their philosophies, and in their strong adherence to their own ideas and ideals. But underneath this myriad of expressions, there is self-importance. And the importance that is emphasized in this attitude is weak and inconsistent with life."[1]