Our many little egos

Ego is the “I” or the self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from the objects of its thought.

Going by the above definition, certain amount of ego is essential for our basic existence. What we will be, if we do not possess any bit of it! Then why raise this point at all? It’s fine up to this extent. The problem starts beyond this. All of us, one time or the other, many times deliberately and a few times unknowingly, exert our ego. This creates issues between family members, close friends & relatives, colleagues, neighbours, etc. Nobody can remain unaffected by it.

Many times we have seen the business flourishing when two brothers are working together towards a common goal and invariably one fine day we find that they have split. Barring a few cases, the reason is ego. The elder brother may think that the younger one lacks experience & maturity and on the other hand the younger one may find the elder one to be preachy & impractical. While they may be in a mood to express their feelings and clarify the issues to reach an alignment, their egos do not allow them to do that, resulting into a painful split.

We may still accept that in examples like the one above, egos may play a dominant role, since the stakes are high. However, more often than not, people exert egos for silly issues. Some people find it hard to tolerate if someone zips faster than them while the signal has turned green or overtakes them on the road. A few get uncomfortable if someone parks their car little closer to theirs, many resist sharing the armrest while sitting next to each other in an aircraft, a few feel offended if someone asks them to share the ‘complimentary’ newspaper or an in-flight magazine. Do you recollect the reaction of a few when they have been waiting for a considerable time in a queue to buy a ticket and someone walks directly to the window with a genuine need to enquire whether it’s the right queue for him or her? And then there are those, who would always want to be seated comfortably and would every time expect their good friends / colleagues to take the uncomfortable back-seat of a seven-seater MUV!

Sometimes we wonder whether we should express our displeasure directly to those who have wronged us, by telling them that we do not like how they are behaving, sometimes we feel like expressing by doing a tit-for-tat. Personally I think, why spoil an otherwise healthy relationship for the sake of our little egos which come into play many times nonchalantly, as they have got ingrained in our natural self, who knows how and for how long.

And then I decide that rather than expressing it upfront, let me share it on my blog - the only forum which accepts all, without reacting, because it doesn’t take pride in exerting its many little egos!