Ego

There is some confusion, I think, about the definition of “ego”. Psychology, as a field, has stressed for some time the need to develop a strong ego – a sense of self identification – as a major component for a healthy psyche. The ability to define self as separate from others is seen as essential to keep from falling into abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationships in which our ability to make healthy choices for ourselves is deficient.

In apparent contrast, spiritual circles of all stripes tend to urge their followers to reduce the demands of ego, to think of others before oneself, or even instead of oneself.

How to sort all of this out?

I’ve come to see the topic of “ego” as less important than the awareness of how one sees oneself in relation to others and the world. This may be more a topic of self image, as it were. If we embrace the notion that we are all interconnected with one another and with a common origin of Life Itself (by whatever name we call it), we glimpse the truest meaning of being free of ego. Meaning, we realize that no action or thought we have is devoid of impact of/on the whole, because we are never really separate.

Having said that, we do have some square inches of territory we call the “self” over which we seem to have some unique control and choice. This, by definition, we could call “ego”. That sense of ourselves as separate enough from the whole that we can exert some choice and direction.

Herein we begin to run into the arena of how we deal with this “self-who-is-separate”. Do we berate her? Support her? Make healthy or unhealthy choices for her? And, all these decision points seem to revolve around those aforementioned messages we’ve absorbed about “self” in the first place.

To the extent that we extend kindness, compassion and gentle regard for the one we call self, we give ourselves a chance to succeed in a good way on this planet, Earth. If, instead, we feel it our obligation to “keep ourselves in line”, to punish ourselves for every little perceived transgression (as defined, usually, by some outside authority), we will be running scared and deficient from every opportunity as victims of our own minds. We are often taught to do this in the name of helping us be “better” people.

When we think about it, it is a form of hypocrisy to treat others better than we treat ourselves. It is just as odious as thinking of ourselves as the ONLY ones who matter. If we, in contrasting notion, think of ourselves as the only one who doesn’t matter – we’ve committed the same “crime” against humanity.

What one person can we consider as “less than” in our regard for health and wellbeing? If we make our one being that exception, we have still harmed a part of life.