Let’s Talk Life: Ego

Hey, y’all!! The topic of ego has been weighing on my mind and heart quite a bit lately. As such, I felt it only right to write about it and get my thoughts out. So if you wouldn’t mind, pull up a chair and let’s talk ego.

One of my best friends recently told me I had an ego

And while I don’t think I’m on Kanye’s level, she really got me thinking: what does that mean? If you asked me if I had a big ego, I would have said no. I consider myself confident in what I know, I feel like I understand that I don’t know everything, and I understand that being humble and teachable is important.

So, like a non-egotistical person, I decided she was wrong and kept it pushing. “Me? Nah, I’m incredibly humble, she’s just trippin”. But over the past few days, I’ve been really thinking about her words and realized that she’s right.

But what does that mean exactly?

Let’s define the ego. Some definitions of ego define it as our self-esteem or self-confidence. I personally feel like that definition is too simplistic, and find the theories of Sigmond Freud and Carl Jung to be more applicable. The ego “represents the conscious mind as it comprises the thoughts, memories, and emotions a person is aware of. The ego is largely responsible for feelings of identity and continuity”. Basically, our egos are what make us…..us.

So that raises the question: why is having an ego a bad thing? Well, if you ask me, it isn’t. Without our egos, we wouldn’t be people. There would be no sense of self, no dreams, no beliefs, no drive, no life. So the ego itself isn’t inherently bad. But when it grows too large and impedes on our perspectives and progress in life, that is when it becomes detrimental.

Big egos are problematic because they blind us to the truth

The ego is the driving force in how we see the world, most of the time. But it’s almost like looking through a stain glass window; we see the world, but it’s not in its true form. Instead, it’s colored and in some cases, distorted. Ego shows us the world through a perspective, not necessarily how it actually is. Which can be problematic for numerous reasons.

One way it can be an issue is that it stifles communication. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who thought, no matter what you said, that they were right? I have. Hell, in some cases I’ve even been that person. How did you feel afterward? Did you want to continue discussing things with them? If you’re like me, probably not. It’s tough to talk to someone who doesn’t even want to consider what you’re saying.

On top of that, it prevents us from accepting responsibility for our actions. We talked about responsibility before and discussed how important it is. But the truth of the matter is this: sometimes we’re the problem. The only way we can fix that is if we’re aware, and we can only be aware if, like Buddha said, we clear the dust from our eyes.

Also, big egos usually mask big insecurities

That’s what really had me thinking so hard about the whole thing: is my ego just a shield for my insecurities? Turns out, just like many others, the answer is yes. And it revealed itself recently. As a kid, I got made fun of for a variety of reasons, such as wearing a jeans jacket or other heavy coat in summer in Georgia (I might have deserved that, to be fair), sometimes lacking common sense, “walking like a penguin”, or just otherwise being weird in general. But I was book smart, even though sometimes it took a second to get concepts, and had a bomb ass memory.

So as I grew up, the entire goal became to not be made fun of, fly under the radar, and embrace my mental gifts. You can probably guess how that went. I definitely still got made fun of and as with most things, my memory is not as sharp as it was when I was 16 (shout out to aging). I still react negatively to being made fun of, even though I do recognize that teasing, NOT BULLYING (I might modify the CSS for bold, cause I can’t stress enough that bullying is not okay EVER), can have positive effects on people. But as I got older, I started having an almost irrational fear of being stupid. Which has definitely caused me to lash out at people who I felt had treated me as such. But all of that stems from ego.

If I had taken my ego blinders (I might have to trademark that) off, I would have realized that most of the people who I felt wronged me didn’t. And that I chose to interpret their words and actions as such. In many cases, I have felt myself to be so important that I failed to empathize with others. I’ll talk more about that later. But the key is, we have to take off the blinders and see reality, not our perception of it. Because that perception could be wrong.

I used to work out with a former coworker, and he would say this all the time

He was talking about the gym mostly, but I feel like we can apply this to all aspects of our life. The main issue with the ego is that it prevents us from empathizing with other people. So the main advice I have for both you and me is to check your ego at the door. The “door” here could be anything: the physical door of a gym, the beginning of a text thread, or midway through a documentary. Jocko Willink talks about checking the ego all the time. It takes work, but checking our egos is crucial to our relationships, careers, and lives.

So how do we do that? Take a step back and detach. It sounds wild and pretty abstract. But what that means is mentally assessing the situation without judgment. Extracting the bias and being brutally honest about what’s happening. Listening with the intention to understand is an excellent method as well, since it forces us to drop back and see the whole picture, and think about where what the other party is saying fits in.

But that’s really just like putting a bandaid on an infection. It’s addressing a symptom, not the cause of the disease. Which is how we feel, i.e. our thoughts on the subject. I want to do a post on As A Man Thinketh by James Allen, so I won’t go too in-depth on it here. But the verse that inspired the book is Proverbs 23:7 in the King James version which says “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. So when we catch ourselves feeling or thinking in that vein we need to acknowledge those thoughts, dig into why we’re thinking them, and then replace them with a thought that’s more conducive to what we want. I know that sounds difficult, but know I’ll be right there with you in the trenches, trying to better myself and crush my insecurities.

One of my favorite songs references this quote

It’s a reminder to us that letting our ego consume everything causes more harm than good. And even though it’s not inherently evil, we need to make sure to keep it in check. So I hope that you’ll join me as we starve the ego and feed the soul together.

I want to thank you for talking humans with me today. How do you deal with ego, in yourself or others? Leave your answer in the comments below. Be sure to share this with one person who you think will enjoy or get something out of it. And don’t forget to talk humans with someone this week. Til next time, peace!