If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance，I’ll tell you what you are.That determines your character.That is the most significant thing about you.For example，John D.Rockefeller got his feeling of importance by giving money to erect a modern hospital in Peking，China，to care for millions of poor people whom he had never seen and never would see.Dillinger，on the other hand，got his feeling of importance by being a bandit，a bank robber and killer.When the FBI agents were hunting him，he dashed into a farmhouse up in Minnesota and said，“I’m Dillinger！”He was proud of the fact that he was Public Enemy Number One.“I’m not going to hurt you，but I’m Dillinger！”he said.
Yes，the one significant difference between Dillinger and Rockefeller is how they got their feeling of importance.
History sparkles with amusing examples of famous people struggling for a feeling of importance.Even George Washington wanted to be called “the President of the United States”；and Columbus pleaded for the title “Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India.”Catherine the Great refused to open letters that were not addressed to “Her Imperial Majesty”；and Mrs.Lincoln，in the White House，turned upon Mrs.Grant like a tigress and shouted，“How dare you be seated in my presence until I invite you！”
Our millionaires helped finance Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the Antarctic in 1928with the understanding that ranges of icy mountains would be named after them；and Victor Hugo aspired to have nothing less than the city of Paris renamed in his honor.Even Shakespeare，mightiest of the mighty，tried to add luster to his name by procuring a coat of arms for his family.
People sometimes became invalids in order to win sympathy and attention，and get a feeling of importance.For example，take Mrs.McKinley.She got a feeling of importance by forcing her husband，the President of the United States，to neglect important affairs of state while he reclined on the bed beside her for hours at a time，his arm about her，soothing her to sleep.She fed her gnawing desire for attention by insisting that he remain with her while she was having her teeth fixed，and once created a stormy scene when he had to leave her alone with the dentist while he kept an appointment with John Hay，his secretary of state.
Some authorities declare that people may actually go insane in order to find，in the dreamland of insanity，the feeling of importance that has been denied them in the harsh world of reality.There are more patients suffering from mental diseases in the United States than from all other diseases combined.
What is the cause of insanity？Nobody can answer such a sweeping question，but we know that certain diseases，such as syphilis，break down and destroy the brain cells and result in insanity.In fact，about one-half of all mental diseases can be attributed to such physical causes as brain lesions，alcohol，toxins and injuries.But the other half—and this is the appalling part of the story—the other half of the people who go insane apparently have nothing organically wrong with their brain cells.In post-mortem examinations，when their brain tissues are studied under the highest-powered microscopes，these tissues are found to be apparently just as healthy as yours and mine.
Why do these people go insane？
I put that question to the head physician of one of our most important psychiatric hospitals.This doctor，who has received the highest honors and the most coveted awards for his knowledge of this subject，told me frankly that he didn’t know why people went insane.Nobody knows for sure But he did say that many people who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were unable to achieve in the world of reality.Then he told me this story：
“I have a patient right now whose marriage proved to be a tragedy.She wanted love，sexual gratification，children and social prestige，but life blasted all her hopes.Her husband didn’t love her.He refused even to eat with her and forced her to serve his meals in his room upstairs.She had no children，no social standing.She went insane；and，in her imagination，she divorcedher husband and resumed her maiden name.She now believes she has married into English aristocracy，and she insists on being called Lady Smith.
“And as for children，she imagines now that she has had a new child every night.Each time I call on her she says：‘Doctor，I had a baby last night.’”
Life once wrecked all her dream ships on the sharp rocks of reality；but in the sunny，fantasy isles of insanity，all her barkentines race into port with canvas billowing and winds singing through the masts.
Tragic？Oh，I don’t know.Her physician said to me：“If I could stretch out my hand and restore her sanity，I wouldn’t do it.She’s much happier as she is.”
One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year （when there was no income tax and a person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off）was Charles Schwab，He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in 1921，when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old.Schwab later left U.S.Steel to take over the then-troubled Bethlehem Steel Company，and he rebuilt it into one of the most profitable companies in America.
Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year，or more than three thousand dollars a day，to Charles Schwab？Why？Because Schwab was a genius？No.Because he knew more about the manufacture of steel than other people？Nonsense.Charles Schwab told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of steel than he did.