I come from a country which suffers from this to a ridiculous degree, as a way of preventing people from developing any pride or ‘giving themselves airs’. It is a form of low self esteem which is particularly prevalent with people who wish to avoid responsibility. I cannot tell you how stultifying it is when it is a national characteristic.
Another form of it is small person’s disease. I don’t mean that the suffers are small in stature, they are small in outlook. Some people don’t get it until they get older, some people always suffered from it.
Stranger in a hat disease
In this form, the sufferer refuses to listen to any new information unless it is conveyed via a television set, or physically attractive stranger in the case of many men. Any information imparted from people that they know is instantly refuted, making it pretty much impossible to converse at all, in some cases, since they will argue with anything you say. Elderly people get suckered into this one, even when all the evidence points to you knowing exactly what you are talking about. ie. You have a postgraduate degree in the subject, versus a minor celebrity mentioning it on TV.
There is no known cure. You are doomed to being disrespected as a seven year old child for the rest of your life with a sufferer of this problem.
eg. “No, of course it isn’t autumn, it is spring.”
“Would you like me to find a stranger in a hat to tell you what month it is?”
Small person’s disease
This is the one all motivational speakers seek to cure, in a myriad of expensive and time consuming ways. This is the assumption that anyone in a public arena or position of any power whatsoever is different from you, special, untouchable and morally superior. Even if the celebrity in question has committed a murder, they are still deserving of a mysterious form of worship that makes anything they do of considerably more importance than actually doing anything yourself. This one is more dangerous, since the sufferer abdicates all responsibility for their progress and self worth, in favour of accepting a perceptive state where everyone is luckier/better/more important than they are, and end up playing hours and hours of Candy Crush Saga, Farmville etc., whilst seeking validation from a group of similar peers. If challenged, they become fearful and retreat into these futile pursuits, effectively becoming a form of zombie. The idea of actually challenging anyone with any status at all is effectively rendered to mean the challenger is in a state of insanity. This is what befell most of my friends after the Wolfe saga started, since I can see no reason why I am not just as important/talented/capable/worthy of being loved as someone on the grounds of a few hundred youtube videos. Many would say considerably more so, despite my aversion to fame.
This is the kind of problem that causes civilisations to crumble unnoticed, since nobody accepts their ability to actually do anything, no matter how small.
This is the reasoning behind the Better Person Project. If everybody spent ten minutes a day inputting information from wherever they were, it would be considerably easier for people looking for more worthwhile ways to spend their time to actually find those things. As I have said, until the artwork moves, I am unable to redesign the site, so it is a bit clunky at the moment, but perfectly usable.
It applies just as readily to your daily life. What exactly stops you from taking your ten minute walk, reading for an hour a day in a subject of interest, perhaps doing a few blogged reviews etc? As someone who does not get out because of my caring, I recommend you do so, just in case you are unlucky enough to end up in the same miserable position I am in. Failing that, you can easily change the world if you stop telling yourself you cannot. Such is the nature of the world. If you do nothing, you only have yourselves to blame and all those excuses will look very silly indeed.