Self Exploration (day 36) – Ego

I talk about ego a lot, or rather, it comes up in conversation with me a lot because I have taken it unto my self to identify it by name when I see it.

I identify it not necessarily to eradicate it, but mostly to see and feel and smell and taste it for all it’s worth. If I’m sleeping with it, may as well have the pleasures of really getting to know it, right?

I hear a lot of speak about “losing the ego,” or “dropping the ego,” but to be honest, I don’t think anybody that is subject to the wiles of our modern world will ever be able to fully eradicate the ego. I also have a hard time believing that anybody can actually ditch the ego while still being alive. I think liberation comes with death, perhaps only for a brief moment before we’re stuffed back into a body on earth.

What I do know is that we each have a different awareness of our ego.

For me, I take the approach of keeping my friends close, but my enemies closer – or in this case, my ego closer.

I understand ego is the very thing that shapes our character. It’s what learns our mannerisms, what makes us feel uncomfortable in foreign situations, what my language sounds like, and what clothes I wear. It’s how I breathe, and how I walk through this world. It’s also who I associate with, and who I justify what I do with.

Being egotistical is to inflate my ego to irrational, disrespectful, and ignorant behavior. I believe letting my ego control me is equivalent to not learning, having a fear to not try new things.

By knowing my ego intimately, I feel that I can identify when it’s inhibiting my growth or experience. When I become aware of this, repeatedly become aware of it, I can start to formulate an action plan on how to change this affliction or reaction my ego causes me to have.

I believe this understanding has helped bring me on my way to a peaceful place where I allow life to flow around me like a magical alchemy of energy. Where instead of reflecting what I see away from me, afflicted, I embrace the uniqueness (before my ego gets a hold of it) and store it away in my memory bank of awareness.

This to me is the ideal – and blissful – state of being. This is the state I imagine people are referring to when they tell me to leave my ego at the door.