Ego - how it affects me

When Abraham Maslow was asked about the meaning of self-actualization, he replied," There are just two things to remember: one is to learn to become independent of the good opinion of other people and the second is to master the art of being detached from the fruits of your labours".

When I ponder on these thoughts, I realize that most of my miseries are the result of not understanding (or shall I say imbibing) the above thought. At my job I feel that everybody should talk good about me. My subordinates should think of me as an excellent & understanding boss. My colleagues should think of me as "competent & effective" professional. And my boss should consider me dependable and result oriented. Similarly at home, I strive to be an ideal father to my children, understanding husband to my wife and obedient son to my fathers. Carrying it further, I need to be a law abiding citizen and contibuting to well being of my neighbourhood and society at large.

But striving to achieve all these requires nothing less than super-heroic efforts. I don't realize that I have my own share of imperfections. So when I "overhear" my subordinates criticizing me, I go in defensive mode - I keep replaying the my conversations/actions in my mind, justifying to myself that I am right and my subordinates don't understand my position. Similarly, when "grapevine" tells me that my colleagues are speaking negative about me, I feel professionally threatened - I develop self-doubt, the basic assumptions being that my colleagues are right and my actions must win their approval. At that time I don't understand that the same colleagues who are criticizing me at my back, criticize everybody else - my ego comes in my way and I have a deep urge that my colleagues should always speak positively about me. In the same manner, when my boss gives feedback for my improvement during my performance appraisal, my heart misses a beat and I have a lump in my throat - "how can I (a very big I) can have weaknesses". All these gives the impression that till date I have not been succesful in my life - the basic assumption in my understanding being that everybody (repeat everybody) should have good opinion about me.

I don't realize that no person has been able to achieve these conditions. All the great souls who have ever walked on earth had enemies and had their own fair share of crticism. In fact if I give a deep thought, I can "see" that all these great men had to pass through highly adverse conditions before they achieved "greatness". I fail to consider:

- Mahatma Gandhi, who preached and practised non-violence, had to face a violent death at the hand of an hindu fanatic.

- Abraham Lincoln, inspite of doing so much good for the mankind, was assasinated.

- Martin Luther King was also assasinated.

- Nelson Mandela had sto spend half his life in prison.

- Even, the son of God (Jesus) had to endure severe hardships

There are numerous examples which show that no person has been able to achieve "goodness" in the eyes of all persons. When I consider these facts, I realize that the only difference between these great souls and me is that these persons were able to detach themselves from the good opinion of others, whereas I am still a slave of others good opinion. Or to put simply, the great souls did good (which inner voice guided them) ignoring the comments of others. Whereas I, tend to seek approval always from others for my actions.

Wayne Dyer says that "When you become the observer, you detach yourself from the outcome. You get your ego and everything in the material world out of the picture and you allow the highest part of you to observe the circumstance ... It's in the taming of the eqo that you find the sacred in your life. You find greater strength when you can stop being so focussed on you and your bottom line and start reaching out to others".

More on this tomorrow ....