EGO & SELF-RESPECT

I recently came to know about a pretty logical interpretation of ‘self-respect’ and ‘ego’ which I would like to share. Self respect and ego are the opposites. Self-respect means ‘my own respect’, whereas ego is ‘not respecting my own self’.

Where there is ego, self respect cannot come into existence and vice-versa. We create feeling of ego when we lack self respect. When we are unable to love and respect our own self, we try to find the same in the outer world; and ego takes place when those external expectations or honor-seeking desires are unfulfilled by the external sources (people, situations etc.)…coz the world cannot go according to you. A self respecting person would never feel insulted or less honored when he does not achieve good amount of respect from the world. Anyways there is an ample of respect and love in his heart for himself that he does not need any external being to come and praise for him. His expectations from others are zero. On the contrary, his full focus is on how to serve others by his contentment and fulfillment.

My inner respect for myself cannot make me disturb by any outer rejection or criticism, whereas, it’s difficult to handle criticism or failure because of the lack of his self-respect and resilience for an egoist.

 For example, I am in an office meeting, and I’ve presented a brilliant idea on which I’ve worked hard a lot and I’m confident enough that it would be appreciated. But unfortunately, it is NOT liked by the boss or the employees and is rejected. The first thought as a normal egoist being I’ll create: “they all are ignorant, illiterate. They don’t know anything…my presentation is so fantastic and they dint acknowledge…I am the best they don’t know… I am going to quit this job”. THIS IS EGO. I am totally depressed as I started creating negative thoughts. Negative thoughts and words of my colleagues are revolving through my mind. This implies that I made the presentation for making the boss happy, NOT for my own happiness and interest. I am disturbed by the results of my assignment because I was expecting the appraisal from my colleagues, i.e., external sources.

On the contrary, let’s keep a self respecting man in this same situation. His reaction on his presentation rejection will be, “It’s okay. In fact it’s good that I‘ve been rejected…I’ve got the opportunity to work more on the same and understand my drawbacks. Now I will work harder on this same presentation and make it a perfect one.” OR “I will improve my mistakes but my presentation is excellent for me, according to my caliber and intellect….coz it is my work which I did for my own interest and knowledge.”

Self respect leads a person to deep rooted humility, will to learn, self-analysis, contentment and resilience. Whereas ego makes a man vacuumed from within which results in increasing frustrations, desires to seek attention and appreciation, sympathy gaining, etc. Ego in its advanced stage leads to anger and depression or sometimes in all the more detrimental state.

Therefore, one should try to self-analyze and introspect to check where he is heading towards and block the thought then and there once he finds it negative or dependent upon the outer world. Get introduced from your inner self and love yourself intensely before you are accelerated to EGO ZONE and make it difficult to return.