What is “ego”, how do you define it and control it?

Ego. What a terrifying word, right? To have someone accuse you of “having an ego” is something successful people or ambitious people hear all the time. That accusation, however, is just as idiotic as accusing someone of having hair. It is a problem only if you don’t have an ego. The reason why the word “ego” is so misunderstood stems probably from spiritual texts that the students of great masters haven’t completely understood. See, the word “ego” actually means only your idea of who you are as a person. Nothing more. Of course, you can have an unhealthy ego, but having an ego is really not a problem.

What is ego: an ego is a combination of 4 main parts:

1. Who do you think you authentically are? “I am”.
2. Who do you think others think you are? “They think I am / they would never think that I am…”
3. Who you think others think you should be: “Everyone/my mom/my dad/my friends think I should be…”
4. Who you would like to develop into: “I am this now, but in the future, I want to become…”

(What is ego, point 1) Who “I am” is a question of self-awareness

Most people, all people, in fact, have an incomplete idea of who they are. We figure it out little by little, and the very purpose of this website is to help you to dig deeper and deeper into who you are at a faster pace than you otherwise might do – all life coaches, psychologists, and astrologers do the same thing for you, to help you understand more and more about who you are. A person’s knowledge and self-awareness is simply a function of literally becoming aware of one’s own qualities. You know how something unusual happens and you find out that you could function under a situation you didn’t even think about before, or you might have become aware of a strong love you feel for someone just as you were about to lose them, or something directed your attention to a part of yourself that you hadn’t previously paid attention to even though it was always there. That is the evolution of self-awareness and the part of ego that is about “I am”.

(What is ego, point 2) “No ego” means a very undeveloped idea of “self”

It is possible for a person to have “no ego” or to have virtually no ego. What this means in practise – and people like this do exist – is that the person is completely reliant on other people’s ideas of who they are. They do not know what kind of person they are, so others are in complete liberty to define to them who they are and they accept any definition without criticism to be the truth. If I would tell someone without ego that “You are not human” they would accept it and ask: “Then what am I?” Then I could tell them anything I like, and if they literally have no ego, they would take that as the truth until someone else redefined who they are for them.

(What is ego, second half to point 2) “All ego” means completely self-defined sense of self

A person who is “all ego” would be a person who takes no input from others at all to help refine and fine tune their own idea of who they are. They have their mind set on a persona that they do not allow  anyone to challenge, to the point that they do not even go into an ego reaction as a result. If they have decided that they are green, no amount of convincing will tweak them to the truth of them being plain old caucasian. They have no ears for criticism, no matter how it has been delivered.

(What is ego, point 3) The should folk

If a person’s ego is balanced too strongly to the “what I should be” part of the equation, they are likely to live in constant guilt and fear of doing the wrong thing. They are constantly self-monitoring for any “bad behaviour” and trying to self-control any selfish moves on their own part. (I would like to drop a name here, but I will resist the temptation.) In their past lives, these people are very likely to have been serving as monks and priests, their moral code is overactive and they are constantly over the edge riddled with guilt that needs not be there. On the positive side… These people come far, fast. The positives of keeping oneself in check for a few lifetimes gives a person a certain competitive edge, because they do tend to know themselves quite thoroughly, because their moral compass is always busy finding sins, they have also had to evaluate their own virtues. They also, tend to be quite quick to judge others, but never as harshly as they judge themselves.

If a person like this also has no ego or is in early stages of developing their ego, they are completely or partially dependent on others to define what they should be – and everyone would have a slightly different opinion on that matter, so they would constantly try to please all others, without knowing who they are and what it is that is expected of them. In a strictly religious environment, a person with no self-image (no ego) combined with a high need to be the right way is completely controllable and will submit to the will of their superiors without the slightest rebellion. In a religious environment this works, because the rules of “should” are clearly defined and are not challenged by outside opinions.

The first step to developing more independent ego is to choose one’s own idols. The question “who I want to be like” is an important one for people who have a high level of should -energy to them, because simply choosing an idol or two is a sign of independence, rather than having those idols pointed out to them or self-selected for them. This is a stage of ego development rather than a problem… but then, they all are until a balance is found. Also, we have to remember that no matter how high you do climb in your self-development there are always people who you can set as an example for yourself, simply remember that you should pick the person (general direction) you idolize as well as which of his qualities (detail) you appreciate and want to adopt into your own being. You will never find a person who you want to become a perfect copy of – I hope. The further you develop, the higher your idols, one day you want to be just like your mother or father, the next, you want to become your teen-age idol, then, you follow the footsteps of an ironclad professional in the field in which you want to excel at and so forth, until your idea of yourself becomes completely self-mastered and your shoulds become your own.

(What is ego, second half of point 3) Unity-ego (the “you should” -folk)

Some people believe in the virtue of unity and connection to other people so strongly, that they believe it to be their right to define who other individuals should be. This type of ego problem comes out very easily within a family: elders get to define what the young should be and aim to become, but in some cases this type of ego-issue will be seen in friendships and love affairs, too: the wife gets to define what a husband should be like, or the husband gets to define what the wife should be like, or boyfriend/girlfriend, but also, very obviously friends try to define what their friends should be, and if they are not that, they will freely attempt to change their friends into who they, themselves, feel they should be.

A person with the need to control others and their way of being will do this thinking they are doing the other one a favor, and, in some cases that is true. However, there is always a difference between an oppressor and a guide, and any guide, tutor, counselor, group leader, teacher etc. should be vary of not crossing the border between telling someone who they should be and guiding people towards higher sense of their own self. You know there is an issue if you ever feel like the other person’s failures reflect poorly on you – they should be able to make a complete fool out of themselves without you feeling like they are shaming you in the process.

People who have entitlement issues are quite often attached to the previous group, because if one person thinks “I should” the person who thinks “you should” makes a whole: If you need to serve and I need to be served, the whole is complete. These people think there is totally such a thing as a free lunch, and it is usually coming out of the back of the previously mentioned people. This group thinks “I should not have to pay” and the previous group thinks: “I should not ask for people to pay me”, for instance. A match made in heaven. Now, the disadvantage for the people who have entitlement issues is the opposite to the previous group; They are going nowhere fast. Their personal development is slow, troubled, reluctant, filled with excuses and blaming others. If this habit is not broken,  they will not be able to fully utilize their own talent or become self-reliant.

Remember that there is always a balance between everything, sometimes you have to know what others need to do for you so you won’t get run over by them, and other times, you need to see that you do right by others and don’t take advantage of others who are weaker than you.

Girls… By the way. Watch this in your relationship with men. Women have a culturally set entitlement to be served by men, and it is not healthy. That is the root cause for every problem feminism has been dealing with since day one. (But that is another story entirely.)

(What is ego, point 4) Future self

In many ways, the future self -part of the ego is the most important one. We can all get stuck halfway to a goal or in other people’s expectations, but who we are is very much the goal; who we would be happy and proud to be. This should, in many situations be the only question to ask a person; instead of asking “what do you do for living” the much more telling question would be: “who do you want to be in the future?” Also, what a person wants to be is what they will become – as soon as they give themselves the permission to be it and as soon as they are willing to do the work required to become that. However, what a person wants to be is who we should fall in love with, not who they are now, because that will create more pressure for them to remain unhappy with themselves, but if we already love the person they want to become, we are adding to their power to become it.

A person may be well stuck in all sorts of ego problems, but once those problems are solved… This is who they will become.

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