Living With Ego For 18 Years
Before we dive in, this story wouldn’t make sense without a dash of hubris, so bear with me a little on this note. With that being said, on with the story.
Back in my salad days, when I was in kindergarten all the way through middle school, I was at the top of my game. Winning awards left and right, winning student of the month on a consistent basis, I could easily memorize a Bible verse within mere seconds. Okay, maybe a dash of hubris isn’t really fitting, how about a whole gallon?
So yes, I’m sure you’ve also had that experience. Constantly being up on your academic game, triumphing over events and would happily accept any challenge that come your way, and when you didn’t win you’d go full berserk and try to one up your oppositions by working even harder. That’s how life was for me—until it wasn’t. My ego got in the way of my accomplishments, my ego got in the way of my love for challenges.
This story wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t, in some way, explain what ego meant for me. For me, ego is this sort of self-preserving mechanism in our minds. It’s what comforts us in our deepest and darkest moments—until it doesn’t and your stuck in complacency.
Looking at all these trophies, all these certificates, these medals, I thought that I was entitled to all of these, that I was the smart one in the family and that I didn’t need any more because I was already pretty bright.
Come junior year of high school, I started to not care about academia any longer because I was already smart. Until I wasn’t and I flunked a couple of classes, until I wasn’t and I took for granted every academic opportunity thrown my way to further excel in my studies. Now I’m a senior, and I don’t even know if I’ll be graduating on time. That’s how bad it got.
Ego didn’t just ruin my academic life, it ruined practically every aspect of my being. Relationships never worked for me because I was always needy, things would either go my way or there wouldn’t even be a discussion, I became too complacent and I didn’t even want to do my chores.
Having read Ryan Holiday’s book Ego Is The Enemy and The Obstacle Is The Way, in hopes of curing this disease, the one thing I’ve taken away from these two books is, it’s not the summit that’s important—it’s the climb.
Look, I get it, it’s one of the most cliche things you’ve heard but it’s true. If all one really cares about are medals, or the trophies won after accomplishing a goal or winning a tournament, sure it’ll give you a high… for about 15 seconds, then afterwards follows a huge wave of emptiness—trust me.
So what can you take away from this extremely hubristic article? Don’t care about the grades, disregard the value of the medals, of the trophies. Instead, love the process, remember the euphoria of staying up long nights just to finish a project, the weird joy you felt every time you were in the process of solving algebra questions, remember those? It’s called being in flow, and that is where your happiness with your work should come from.
Because at the end of the day, you can’t bring those pieces of metal with you in the casket.
Back in my salad days, when I was in kindergarten all the way through middle school, I was at the top of my game. Winning awards left and right, winning student of the month on a consistent basis, I could easily memorize a Bible verse within mere seconds. Okay, maybe a dash of hubris isn’t really fitting, how about a whole gallon?
So yes, I’m sure you’ve also had that experience. Constantly being up on your academic game, triumphing over events and would happily accept any challenge that come your way, and when you didn’t win you’d go full berserk and try to one up your oppositions by working even harder. That’s how life was for me—until it wasn’t. My ego got in the way of my accomplishments, my ego got in the way of my love for challenges.
This story wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t, in some way, explain what ego meant for me. For me, ego is this sort of self-preserving mechanism in our minds. It’s what comforts us in our deepest and darkest moments—until it doesn’t and your stuck in complacency.
Looking at all these trophies, all these certificates, these medals, I thought that I was entitled to all of these, that I was the smart one in the family and that I didn’t need any more because I was already pretty bright.
Come junior year of high school, I started to not care about academia any longer because I was already smart. Until I wasn’t and I flunked a couple of classes, until I wasn’t and I took for granted every academic opportunity thrown my way to further excel in my studies. Now I’m a senior, and I don’t even know if I’ll be graduating on time. That’s how bad it got.
Future Me: “Editing this article and am proud to say that your boy did graduate! We did it Class of 2020!”
Ego didn’t just ruin my academic life, it ruined practically every aspect of my being. Relationships never worked for me because I was always needy, things would either go my way or there wouldn’t even be a discussion, I became too complacent and I didn’t even want to do my chores.
Having read Ryan Holiday’s book Ego Is The Enemy and The Obstacle Is The Way, in hopes of curing this disease, the one thing I’ve taken away from these two books is, it’s not the summit that’s important—it’s the climb.
Look, I get it, it’s one of the most cliche things you’ve heard but it’s true. If all one really cares about are medals, or the trophies won after accomplishing a goal or winning a tournament, sure it’ll give you a high… for about 15 seconds, then afterwards follows a huge wave of emptiness—trust me.
So what can you take away from this extremely hubristic article? Don’t care about the grades, disregard the value of the medals, of the trophies. Instead, love the process, remember the euphoria of staying up long nights just to finish a project, the weird joy you felt every time you were in the process of solving algebra questions, remember those? It’s called being in flow, and that is where your happiness with your work should come from.
Because at the end of the day, you can’t bring those pieces of metal with you in the casket.
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