"Your BP is high today. Had a rough day?" I asked a patient in my office a few days ago.
"I am sick of my Boss," he exclaimed. "He bosses me around so much!"
"Well....." I said. "Isn't he supposed to do that?"
"No. He can supervise me, but he should not manipulate me. He inserts his nose in everybody's business," he replied. "He is a control freak. He even wants to control my personal life."
I could see that my patient was really very upset.
"Try to calm down, you are only hurting yourself by getting upset. Some people are just built like that" I said.
"His ego is as big as a football field," my patient continued, shaking his head.
"I know a few people like that," I said, trying to soothe him. "Best way to deal with folks like these is to stay away, just don't step on that football field."
Anyway, he did calm down a bit in a while. It did however set me thinking about 'Ego'. We hear this all the time. People complain about others having a big 'ego', and to top it all, the complainers sometimes have a bigger 'ego' than the folks they are complaining about!
So how do we define 'Ego'? What the heck is this ill-defined, subjective "thing"? In the present day world, it can have many meanings -- it can mean one's self esteem, or an inflated sense of self - worth. I read about it a little and here is my 2 cents worth of research.
How do a few people get such an inflated Ego? In the initial phase of life, people around us build our ego. When a child is born, the first thing he or she becomes aware of is the outside world. The eyes open to see the immediate world, the hands touch others, the ears listen to external sounds, the tongue tastes food, and the nose gets a sense of the smells & fragrances. All our senses relish the experiences of the world beyond ourselves. As the child grows, self-esteem is built with the love, attention and affection from others. Ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living within a society.
After a certain stage in life, we start to control our own ego. The problem begins when, in certain individuals, it grows so much that now the roles are reversed. The inflated ego now controls the individual. According to a research study from Oxford University a few years ago, there is a very striking paradox in people with an unrealistic sense of self - worth. These folks are more insecure and exhibit attention seeking behavior most of the time, while interacting with their peers. There seems to be a constant need to impress people all around, at all times.
We all have and need an ego, for its the sense of our being. That's what drives us in our daily lives. But the keywords here are 'realistic' and 'control'.
"If you want to reach a state of contentment and bliss, go beyond your ego and relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved by all and the need to judge." ~ Deepak Chopra
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