Ego Only Has the Power You Give It

The ego is an insidious thing.  Ego is such a small part of who we are, but we make it so much bigger than it deserves to be. The ego will have you believe that you are never successful – you should always be striving for more, more, more.  Think about it, how many people around you feel blessed with what they already have?  Do you have any friends who have a bigger house than you do and still can’t stop thinking about what more they could have?  It is happening more than you might think – even though it may not be advertised out there for everyone to hear.  Some say it is human nature to want more.  It isn’t – it is ego nature.

There is a reason why the difference between CEO pay and the average employee has gone from 42:1 to 319:1 since 1980, it is because of the ego desire for more.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for trying to make more money.  I see nothing wrong with the people at the top making more than the people at the bottom.  I think that those who are more motivated rightfully should be able to make the most money they possibly can.  My issue is with the motivation.  Why do CEOs have to make 319 times the average worker in their companies?  Why has the ratio increased so drastically?

Some would argue that the free market is what should dictate such things as CEO to employee ratios.  If one company feels like they need to pay their top executives astronomical salaries in order to be competitive in the marketplace, then, they feel, they really don’t have much choice – if they want to succeed.  In a free marketplace such as that in the United States of America, there certainly isn’t anyway to rein in such ridiculous differences in pay – that is true.  But I think it is important to understand why this is happening.  It is simply the insatiable ego desire for more.  Why more?  Because people are not happy.  They think that more will make them happier.  It is their ego which makes them believe that they are not happy with what they already have.

In A Course In Miracles,  it states that ego is an illusion – it is, “Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something.”  We are the only ones that give ego power.  Think about it.  Must you be sad in any given moment?  Are you not able to choose to be happy at a moment’s notice?  Sometimes it doesn’t seem that it is possible.  But if you really ponder this thought, the only thing that you have control over is how you feel in this moment.  You cannot control how you felt one minute ago – that is past; you cannot control how you will feel in one minute, so many variables can come into play.  But you can control how you feel right now.  If that is true, then ego really does not exist.  For if you can control how you feel in this moment, then you can always control how you feel in this moment.

The ego is always trying to keep your focus on it.  It always wants you to feel that you are lacking in some way.  Even when you feel like you have reached a desired goal, ego will be right there to remind you that their is more available for your attainment.  Since most of the time when you reach a goal, you usually only feel “satisfied” for a short time, the ego does everything it can to make sure that satisfaction doesn’t last.

I used to play sports quite a bit.  I was fortunate to be a relatively decent athlete.  I’d been on some winning soccer teams as a kid and as a teenager.  I’d also been on one of the best swim teams in the city of Los Angeles through out my high school years.  Not only that, but I was the best diver on that team.  During swim season, week after week, I would win the diving event for my team.  It wasn’t until League and City Finals that I actually saw some decent competition.  But week after week, when I would win, I would notice that the thrill of winning would wear of pretty quickly, and I would crave that thrill again.  I wished I could compete more so that I could have that thrill more frequently.  It was like a drug.  The only way I could satisfy myself was by winning.  Additionally, the big events would only come once a year – at the end of the swimming season.  It was all-or-nothing time at that point.  If I didn’t succeed, I wouldn’t have a chance again for another year.  The bigger the event, the longer the thrill seemed to last, so I really wanted to hit my stride at the end of every season.  Invariably it wore off, however.  When I got to a level that I could no longer feel that thrill, I just quit.  What is the purpose of practicing if I don’t attain the feeling I am trying to attain?

I played softball for years to attain that same thrill of victory.  It was an insatiable ego desire to be the best.  When I couldn’t play softball anymore because of a slew of injuries, I started to play poker.  That continued to fill my ego desire to win.  Always, the thrill was relatively short-lived.  Inevitably, long periods of no success would follow and I would become very depressed.  Ego and depression was leading my on a downwardly spiraling path.

Then, one day, December 27, 2005, I lost my job – for the first time in my life, I was fired.  That event led to several key “happenings” in my life that led me to the realization that I was living a life that was completely ego-based.  Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t happen overnight, but over the course of the next few years, I slowly began to realize that there was so much more to life than being one of the best – to being in first place – or at least close.

A phone call with a person whose name I cannot even remember led me on a path to doing something I love just because I love it – and for no other reason.  She guided me onto the professional path I am now on.  I have a difficult job – I am a teacher, and trust me, it is a very difficult job.  But compared to what I had been doing in my life, it was far and away more satisfying than anything else I had ever done.  Every once in a while, I will find myself stuck in a conversation with teachers who are moping about the injustice of their situations.  The ego loves this.  You see, I finally found something I love to do, but the ego was still trying to make me believe that I was still not satisfied.  The ego never wants you to be satisfied.  But I understand this now – I give credit to much of the reading I have done in books such as Conversations With God, A Course In Miracles, and The Four Agreements.  All of these books and more have helped me realize the hold that the ego tries to take on our lives.  But the ego only survives if we allow it to – if we provide sunshine to it’s budding leaves.  If we leave it in the dark, where it belongs, then it cannot have power over us.

Some might argue that a little ego can be a good thing because it helps move you to bigger and better things.  I vehemently disagree with this.  When it comes right down to it, would you rather be happy, or would you rather be financially wealthy?  I hear some of you saying, “What’s wrong with having both?”  Absolutely nothing – but here is my question again – would you rather be happy, or would you rather be financially wealthy?  The reason I ask is because you can never strive to be financial wealthy and become happy because of it.  The opposite is not true however – you can be happy and end up financially wealthy.  The beauty of this is, even if you don’t become financially wealthy, at least you are still happy!

Money cannot buy you happiness – this is something that ego-driven CEOs don’t seem to realize.  They may tell you that they are happy, but think about it, how can someone be happy when they are keeping such a large proportion of the profit for themselves?  If they were truly happy, wouldn’t they want to spread that wealth a bit more?  If they were truly happy, why would they have a need to increase their own pay to the astronomical levels that they already have.  It can only be because they are not truly happy.  They are only pretending to be.  They are truly unhappy and have found that the only thing that makes them feel better, if only for a moment, is having more.  More homes, more jewelry, more shoes, more beautiful dresses, more custom suits, more cars, more boats, more money, more toys, more, more, more!  They believe it so much they even have bumper stickers to help them feel as if they are right – “He who dies with the most toys wins!”  What is so ironic about this is that when they die, they don’t get to take any of it with them!

It is so sad.

But it is also exactly the way it needs to be.  Everything is the way it is right now because there is something that we need to learn from it.  The ego still has a stranglehold on human beings.  It is such a small part of who you are, yet we give it so much power.  As long as we give it power, it will continue to enjoy its place in our lives.  Fortunately, it’s demise is inevitable, for we will all return to our higher power.  The only thing stopping us is the power we give to the ego.  If ego only has the power we give it, then the ego is not real.  It is merely a figment of our imagination.

Namaste