Responsibility and Ego Management
In my post on responsibility, I said that the best way to become responsible is to list your roles and recognize the importance that living up to these roles gives you. I didn’t say that it is the best way to stay responsible, and in fact, this method will eventually fail even if you do everything right. The problem with it is that it feeds the ego uncontrollably, and the ego is a beast that that gets hungrier the more it is fed.
The ego is a tool that provides motivation. As I have said before, it is your sense of self. Please recognize that it isn’t your true self, it is just one of many lenses that we use to interpret the world around us, and it happens to be very personal to each of us. It is almost impossible to get rid of the ego entirely, and if we did so without recognizing it, we would likely slip into depression or an apathy that would destroy us. If we feed our ego, it continues to ask for more, until we can not provide for it any longer, and we slip into a depression or rage that destroys us. Fortunately, there is a very broad range between the two points of destruction, but if we don’t know how to manage our ego, that broad range is filled with suffering.
There is one other thing that I would like to point out real quick. Managing our ego requires responsibility, and to get a high level of sustainable responsibility, we need to manage our ego. This creates a question of which to create first, the chicken or the egg. Well, why not evolve the tools that we have until we have an egg that will hatch a chicken? That’s why I suggested we feed our ego for a while, so that we can build our sense of responsibility. Also, I’m certain that the ego won’t mind being fed for a while, and your ego will even help you out quite a bit in jump-starting your responsibility.
So, we’ll be using the ego to destroy the ego?
Well, you could say that, but you would be wrong. Destroying the ego is dangerous, and if done recklessly, it could lead us to all sorts of problems. Our goal isn’t to destroy the ego, just put it in a position where it can’t do us any harm, but still gives us the benefits of motivation. We won’t be starving the ego, but we’ll be using one of the few methods around to feed it continuously without it getting hungrier.
Remember, the ego is your sense of self, not your actual consciousness. You can move your ego around, much like you can change your interests, and it doesn’t change who you are, just how you perceive your actions. Most people have placed their ego out into their environment and they often find themselves living in a home that they don’t like, driving a car that they are tired of paying on, going to a job where they hate their boss, and so on. The environment can never satisfy the ego, it’s like eating sugar; it’s sustaining and it sure does taste good, but it’s not nourishing. It doesn’t matter how big your house is, how fast your car is, or whether you like your boss or not, because when we place our ego into the environment, it always wants better, so the spacious 6 room house might as well be a studio apartment, the sports SUV might as well be a ‘77 station wagon, and there’s no way you’ll ever actually like your boss, since he/she’ll never give you more pay with less responsibility like you want.
There are other people who have placed their ego in their friends and acquaintances. I’ve only experienced this with my wife, since I tended to be very shy while growing up, but if your sense of worth is tied to a person, and that person has a bad day, what happens to you? You didn’t do anything to cause that person a problem, and now you’re causing yourself to suffer? It seems foolish, but there are plenty of people out there who have placed their ego solely in the care of other people.
Are your abilities a safe place to put your ego? Well, it’s safer to put your ego into your knowledge and skills rather than your possessions or friends, but it still isn’t safe. An accident at work could keep you from using your knowledge, and a back injury at any type of job that requires physical labor will be a serious blow to your ego.
How about your roles? I’m a decent programmer, and short of losing my arms or having brain damage, that isn’t going to go away any time soon, right? Well, yeah, probably… but there are many different roles, such as father, husband, driver, student, employee, pet owner, renter, etc., and we can’t keep up with them all without burning out. In the short term only, this is a good answer. There are better answers, though.
The two better places that I’ve found to put your ego is in your values and in a life purpose. Your values are things that don’t change, at least, not very often. Honesty, responsibility, and helpfulness are all values, though you could have more values if you wish. Best of all, it doesn’t matter what type of life you’re living, since you always have the choice to be honest. If you put your pride in being responsible, it doesn’t matter if the job is ever done, because you know that you’re doing your best. If your ego revolves around being friendly, it doesn’t matter what mood someone else is in, because it’s your choice to have your own mood. It does take a while to get used to living up to your values, which is why putting your ego into your roles serves as a good short-term crutch, but while you’re using that crutch, identify the values that you want to incorporate into your sense of self, and work to make them habits. Pretty soon, instead of hobbling along, identifying yourself with your roles, you’ll be making great leaps by living a value-based life.
As for your life purpose, I have yet to find anyone who has developed a negative purpose. People may joke about how their purpose in life is to make yours miserable, but honestly, I have only seen people with purposes that are compatible with the greater good of mankind. In fact, the most common purpose I’ve seen is a desire to serve the greater good of all. As for myself, I’ve identified my purpose as “to bring peace to everyone.” Finding a purpose isn’t something that just falls out of the sky, though. Most of us have gone through some great trials and earth-shaking experiences (well, at least earth-shaking for ourselves individually) before we even thought to look for a purpose, and those experiences certainly have helped to create a burning desire to see that purpose come about. The good news, though, is that you don’t have to experience something first-hand for it to affect you; something such as the attacks on Sept 11th, 2001 can be a catalyst, even though you weren’t directly involved. Finding your life purpose is a deeply personal experience; it may be easy, or it may be hard, but the clarity that it will bring will take your ego and hide it away, nourish it, and let it out just enough to bring the motivation that you need.
Once you find your life purpose (and I’ll get into some methods in another post), it’s like finding a keystone to hold up an arch. Your values will fall into place neatly under that purpose, distributing the weight of indecision evenly. You will choose roles that align with your purpose, bearing the weight of life like columns holding up the arch. You will know what skills you need to develop, skills that will support you like a firm foundation.
Alright, sorry for the really cheesy analogy. It just popped in my head suddenly, so of course I had to use it. 
What I wanted to say, is that when you find a life purpose, you’re able to set a permanent center-point for your life. You will be able to base your values off of that purpose. An example is that peace isn’t possible without honesty and responsibility. You’ll choose what roles you adopt from your purpose. If you don’t have the role of provider, then how would you be able to achieve your purpose, since you can’t feed yourself? You’ll start losing habits that don’t align with your purpose, because they simply aren’t interesting anymore. Six months ago, I spent all of my weekends playing computer games, and now, I spend about an hour each weekend playing minesweeper while I think of what I want to do the next week. Since you’ll have extra time, since your old habits will be disappearing, you’ll be able to create new habits that will help you out with your new purpose.
At least, those have been my experiences. As for pride? I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever had a healthy amount of pride. I was always the quiet kid in the back of class who everyone picked on. I can tell you, though, that my self-esteem has increased dramatically, but I don’t need ’stuff’ to help me feel good. In fact, it is getting to the point where too much stuff drags me down, and clutters my mind as much as it clutters my house. I don’t feel false pride, and I know that the pride that I feel about my accomplishments is just my ego trying to gain control. I know that, regardless of who I seem to be on the outside, or who I feel like on the inside, that I have one quality. That quality is both the highest and the lowest that anybody can ever hope for. I am a conscious individual, and I have control over myself. It’s nothing special, really. Everybody has that quality, and I’m no better and no worse for realizing it, but it makes me an individual, and in the end, that is all of the pride that I need.
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