Taming Cdooh

I think I should get a T-shirt made!!

It’s nearly 2am as I begin writing this post and it’s the second time I’m attempting to do so. The first one was lost when the battery of my laptop mysteriously fell out when I was moving it from my lap to the couch when I was done. I hadn’t saved. I was using Notepad. This time I’m using Word just in case something happens. Now in to the story…

A couple of weeks, or more, back I happened to come across a book by Deepak Chopra called ‘Why is God laughing?’ It isn’t a bad book but I really didn’t get the point of it or even why God was laughing when I finished it.  What I did get from is was a lesson, a lesson about ego.

In the book there’s a point where the hero, let’s call him Haman, was asked, by his spirit guide, to do a task that he felt was stupid. He was famous and not accustomed to being treated that way. He was later then asked to at random to make two people in the street laugh, which he should have been able to as he was a comedian. He couldn’t. He was then told to think about how he felt when he failed.

His spirit guide then told him, what for me was the most useful part of the book, something that went like this (my own words but they should give you a good idea of what was said): Our ego makes us believe that we can’t live without it, to protect us from the world but what we don’t realize is that that very ego is what makes us vulnerable to the world.

This really got me thinking about my ego. Anyone who’s read this blog for a while can attest to the fact that I have a huge ego!! I’ve written about it and mentioned it in several posts. Even if I don’t talk about it directly it somehow comes out in most of my posts. I’ve always felt that I’ve need it that it protected me, my emotions. How wrong I was!!

The book caused me to take some time to really think of my ego and how it affects my life and my environment. What I found out was a little shocking, though now with hindsight perhaps it had been coming for a long while. My ego is fed by the things I do, the things I tell myself-in front of other people- and things other people say about me.

Now that isn’t necessarily a bad thing but look at like this. Because my ego said I was very good a certain things I actually shied away from doing the very things it said I was good at because if I failed at it, it would mean that my ego was wrong and that would hurt my feelings. This means that my ego was actively stopping me from being spontaneous, random and experiencing new things and people in life. It was providing two conflicting emotions, you’re awesome at this but if fail then perhaps you’re not.

It showed me that my ego was generally fuelled by other people, what they said about me and how they re-acted to me. I was basing my actions on what/how other people may or may not react to me. Basing your feelings on what other people think is a definite recipe for unhappiness because you have to get a certain, constant continuous, reaction(s) to maintain that happiness and that’s impossible.

 That’s why I’m embarking on a journey, a journey to try tame something so big it’s essentially me, my ego. I can’t have something limiting me from experiencing life to the fullest, or from being happy. It’s not going to be easy, I know, but it’s something I have to try. It means from now on no longer talking of how awesome I am in front of other people. Or how handsome. Or clever. It also means no longer listening to that voice that tells me I can do this but still goes on to add if you fail you’ll be hurt and sad, crushed.

Just so we’re clear I’m not talking about self-confidence here. Self-confidence is good, and essential, but you have to careful with it to because it can totally led to you boosting your ego. In my case they’re certainly so tightly entwined together it’ll be a task disentangling them. So what’s the difference? I think self-confidence is you knowing you can do something but ego kicks in when you get the thoughts that if you fail perhaps you can’t really do it. I mean failing once doesn’t mean you can’t do something, right? Confused? So am I!!! I’m still trying to figure this out.

Yeah, it’ll definitely not be easy. Peace!!!

PS: has anyone else noticed that if you lose a post, try to do it again it doesn’t sound quite as awesome as the first? Let me know what you think of this one in the comments or if you’ve ever experienced what I’m talking about. Peace!!!