Ego vs Self Respect

When you realize how stupid you had been, or how well someone played you, or what a superb ass you had been, or how you had been putty into a supreme manipulator’s hands. But got out of all of it mostly unharmed with just your ego injured; the first reaction is to start beating yourself about it rather than thanking God for keeping you safe.

The question here is; why do we react this way?

In my view, this is because as human beings, we care about our little girl egos more than learning from the experience. And that is because we confuse self-respect with ego. Lately, I have had this discussion quite a few times with different people and, it made me realize that we end up with this confusion more often than not. Be it at work, in personal life or an otherwise mundane situation. It is more of a knee jerk reaction mostly. We usually tend to take any and everything personally. Most of us grow up learning that it is of no use to fight with a hippopotamus as it will get you dirty, and literally, we take it seriously without considering the tiny detail that a hippo will do what it knows best. It is the poor animal’s knee jerk reaction and has got nothing to do with you; so there is no point of internalizing it or thinking about it philosophically. I mean sometimes it is ok to fight, have an argument, exchange a couple of heated words as long as you are not hell-bent to make it personal. Someone’s comment on how you look, dress, your work habits is just that – that person’s opinion. Who says that you have to take everything you hear to heart? I mean every other person simply cannot (or should not) have that kind of hold on you. A colleague or a peer commenting on your work or an idea is just their opinion on that particular thing, it doesn’t define who you are, moreover, you should not ever let it define you. Take it in stride, work on it if it helps you improve and move on. Same goes for everything in life, listen to what people have to say, respect it and do whatever you think is best. After all, you have to be your worst critic and strongest support in the course of life.

A tiny bruise to the ego now and then is just ok and frankly, we need that simply to grow. It isn’t a life-shattering event. Oh, and in the process, it is ok to cry, sulk, being overdramatic as long as we try to get to the other end, be it hurt or bruised. Because as long as we are alive and kicking, it’s all just fine.

Tooba Tanveer