Befriending the Ego: A Lesson in Loving Yourself

The ego gets a bad rap.

The majority of the time, someone being seen as having a “big ego” usually means that they are overly confident in themselves, usually to the point of arrogance.

Maybe they sound condescending when they speak to others or are pompous about what they feel they have to offer the world. They usually carry themselves as if they are inherently better than other people. That they are more important, more talented, more capable, etc.

The thing is though, I feel that on the other side of that coin, the benefits of the ego, go unappreciated. This is most likely because those benefits are usually overshadowed by the hazards.

It makes sense too.

Developing an ego that’s actually healthy and seen as confidence instead of arrogance can be a tricky thing, especially for people who aren’t used to feeling a strong sense of self-worth. Those kinds of people may have a hard time adjusting to a newfound sense of inner strength and might not know when they’re letting their self of self inflate too much.

Or, maybe they’ve always been confident. They’ve never known much adversity in their life and so don’t have the anchor of common reality to keep them grounded and fully aware of themselves.

Either way, the ego is a volatile thing to manage. That doesn’t mean, though, that it should be cast aside to be forgotten completely in the name of self-actualization on our quest to completeness.

Most of us can understand that it is not our outer accomplishments that are truly going to help us develop our inner life. But, that being said, Let’s look at how the ego actually can help our development as we traverse the world and grow as people.

The ego is our superficial scoreboard.

It’s the thing that notices your achievements and lets you feel good about yourself.

Without it, there might not be as much of a drive to continue making strides in your chosen field.

A healthy ego is the thing says, “Wow, I did good. And now I’m going to do even better because I know I can.” It peels back that curtain of self-doubt and hesitation and lets us see that, within the confines of our mental and physical happenstances, we truly are capable of anything.

On the road to self-actualization, I believe that our ego is the thing which, at first, holds our hand to lead us in our chosen direction, but once we begin to walk on our own and start to get closer to a true sense of self, that ego then must be left behind, for the final stretch is our own to traverse.

This is what I think some people have a problem with, never letting go of their ego.

They’ve walked their path hand in hand with their ego for so long, they eventually think they are one and the same thing. They don’t realize that to truly be an individual, you must separate at the end of that road. Their minds can’t fathom it. They feel as if they’re splitting themselves in half because they’ve never allowed themselves to exist separately from the ego. The thing they consider to be who they truly are.

Everyone knows that the ego is a treacherous thing. There are countless lectures, lessons, books, essays, workshops, retreats, rituals, lifestyles, gatherings, techniques, art, music, and mantras all dedicated to the shedding of the ego.

They all teach the hazards of an unhealthy ego, the ways in which it is affecting our lives negatively, and what we can do to help ourselves let go of it as a means of becoming personally fulfilled. It’s honestly all great stuff.

It’s definitely something that people need to work on because most people have no sense of what inside them is their ego and what isn’t.

Most people get so caught up in themselves and how they want other people to see them(myself included), that they never even consider the fact that it’s simply their ego getting out of hand that is causing most of their strife and feelings of hopelessness or inadequacy.

All of those different methods people use for living life free from the ego are some of the most beneficial things a person can do for themselves.

The thing that may be missing from it though, is its benefits.

I’m sure that I’m just not educated on the subject enough to realize that there is probably plenty of information out there on this exact subject, but whatever, coming to your own conclusions about these things is just as beneficial as being told it by someone else, if not more so…probably. My ego says hell yea, so I’ll just go with that for now.

I’m just saying, understanding the ego within yourself, seeing its detriments as well as its benefits, is the ultimate goal. It may be a dangerous thing to tango with, but it’s not entirely made of poison.

It can be a driving force that helps you recognize growth and gives you the confidence to continue evolving, no matter how uncertain or uncomfortable it can feel at times.

As long as you’re aware that this part of your psyche is not who you are, that it is simply the thing that gives you a sense of self and allows you to feel like an individual, then by the time you reach the last stretch of your journey you can part ways with the ego that led you into the life you’ve given yourself like saying goodbye to an old friend.

You can give it a hug and say thank you for giving you the confidence to be yourself amidst adversity and hardship.

You can also give it an affectionate punch on the shoulder for it getting you into trouble those few times, but understand that it’s all been part of the process.

It’s all led you to this moment, where you can see your life as a whole, with mountains and valleys extending back to your birth. Hopefully, at this point you’ve reached an elevation that’s high enough to get a good view.

The ego that you’ve carried with you may be the thing that’s caused you to slip and slide into a valley or two over the years, but it’s also the thing that when you doubted yourself and felt as if it were hopeless for you to try to climb any higher, it echoed in the back of your mind saying, “YES YOU CAN.”

It tightened your grip and steadied your footing. Injected the adrenaline and rattled the heart. It’s not all bad. It can be a real rocket boost when you need it most and it shouldn’t be discounted as only a petty human flaw.

As long as we can see the good in the bad and the bad in the good then we’ll all have an easier time making sense of ourselves and our lives.

Like a personalized yin-yang, the white yang as our fully awake, pure and loving being with the black spot representing the tricky tendency to become dismissive to the world of people and emotions around us, and black yin being a hedonistic hungry ego and white spot being the sense of personal power and confidence that a person needs to successfully navigate life.

I think that makes sense, anyway.

It does to me, I guess. And if it does to me, then it does. I can hear my ego saying, “Nailed it, buddy!” so I guess that’s a wrap.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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