ok, ok, i'm almost over talking about egos, but i'm reading about them twice daily to and from work every day. i can't help but apply these new findings to both myself and other people. so i'm going to do a little bit of application-ing right...
now.
do you talk with your body? most of us do. if i were to walk into a room, and just you and i were in it, there'd be 4 people present. me, my ego, you, and your ego. reason being is that when we communicate to others, we often speak through our ego. yes, you do. don't argue with me. who we "are" and who others perceive us to be are two completely different people. how many times have you picked your nose in public? probably zero even though you do it behind semi-closed doors all the time. but no one can know that about you, right!? you come across as so hygenic.
anyway.
some personal examples:
if i walked into my boss's office, i wouldn't walk in as myself. i would walk in as a writer that is capable of answering any of my boss's questions and/or needs. that's who my boss thinks i am. also, my boss would communicate to me through his role as my superior. i act, speak, and think as a subordinate. am i in real life? absolutely not. i'm a completely different person outside of work, and the same goes for my boss. its almost like we're both in costume, both of us pretending to be bigger than we really are. sad fact, we're both just humans.
if i walked into a bar, i wouldn't walk in as myself. i would be dressed based on others' interests, not necessarily my own. i would act aloof and unknowing, rather than insanely alert and observant, like i am most times, and i would also think with my body. in bars and other social atmospheres, people tend to stick out their chests more, eye contact is usually avoided as a means of superiority (just to make it clear: you are looking at me, i am not looking at you), and we automatically assume people are going to evaluate (i.e. whisper to their friend) our bodies first. we already know that no one whispers "hey, i heard that guy is super fun!" so our ego goes straight to work. we let our ego do all the talking thereafter. if we think we're hot stuff...well we certainly wouldn't want to let anybody down. hi, my name is ryan but my ego's name is david beckham. nice to meet you.
lastly, we all feel the need to be one step ahead of everybody else. i always say knowledge is power, and you know why? knowledge is power. we all love to know something that somebody else doesn't yet know. what we love more is enlightening others, especially since we regard ourselves as having the ultimately enlightened persona, providing a sense of intellectual or social superiority. gossip thrives. "oh, you didn't hear about Mark and Stacy? i know all about it, let me fill you in on the details." all of a sudden, we become this masked knowledge source. in reality, you're just regurgitating random information. but to your ego, you have egotistically separated yourself from the unknowing, until you let them in. even then, your ego will retain its "knowledge source" credibility for when the next bit of news comes along.
with all of this in mind, i'm working on thinking outside of my ego. an ego is merely made up of who we think we are. in reality, we are much more than what we think. if we limit ourselves to our thoughts, we would have a very contained, limited, and delusional perception of self. i know plenty of people like this. in reality, we often surprise ourselves, we're capable of immense change, we're capable of thinking outside of a box. we're capable of a life outside of an ego.
so, think outside of your ego. like i said in the last post, the more aware you are of your ego, the less egotistical you will be.
