Ego that pushes one out of the rapport!

Rabin Prasad Kalita *

After having finished my morning ablution, I stepped in to the dining hall for a cup of tea while still rubbing my face by an Assamese Gamocha (Manually plaited traditional towel of Assam) wrapped around my neck. My wife too brought her share and sat by pulling a chair close to me. She started her conversation with an annotation of displeasure which she confronted with one of her Facebook friends yesterday.

I queried to share the cause of her discontentment some more clearly if she can. She said nothing sort of that, which can’t be unveiled. Notifying her friends, she gave an update in her Facebook account yesterday. The post was regarding our marriage anniversary. There she erroneously committed a mistake while writing the update.

The post had gone unnoticed and unchecked. Instead of typing double “r”, she typed only single “r” in the spelling of “marriage”. There was the problem! The Ping-Pong of counter reactions became a football all of a sudden.

Except one, all most all of her friends kept wishing her forsaking the spelling. The comment of Ms. Y regarding the spelling was a bit satirical. She should not have given that stupid learning publicly. The same could have been notified in her inbox instead of making that damn in public. My wife too didn’t stop her ink from flowing for counter attack.

Being the day an auspicious one, this unsavory conflict has disturbed her all the day. She could have avoided her counter act to Ms. Y to keep her mental commotion cool. Had my wife restricted her anger, the remarks of Ms. Y would have been lying unseen in a cold stockpile. Ms. Y exhibited her expertise approach blatantly by hurting one’s self-image and my wife also gave Ms. Y a space to qualify her say. “Word begets word “.

As if both of them were treating as rivalry to each other and kept on playing their power play of ego. No one wished to withdraw easily. Finally, those cross comments drew a vertical line between both which made their beautiful bond separated from each other.

Ego is a mirror of one’s identity which leads to human perception about how one feels. It is a sense of self-esteem, self-respect, self-image or self-confidence of a person. Hence, it generalizes one’s identity to show one alone in front of others. This is the same identity, which is our own creation that adds to our personality, talent and ability.

Ego is associated with one’s pride. It usually describes one better than others. Negative thoughts comprise negative self-esteem and positive belief contains positive self-esteem. Both, the negative and positive esteem frame our ego. It is developed from our childhood through various situations we come across.

Each one of us has different ego which conceals as an attachment behind one’s opinion. It spotted out only when it reacts to an act. Ego can ruin and deceit one down. It has to be treated as an enemy. Some people say; it is an illusion as it keeps us inaccessible, prejudiced and judgmental. Ego is not an explicit entity so it’s hard to explain or define.

It is made of many different beliefs and ethics, which are assimilated by a person over a time. So it’s different from one to another. It’s better to get rid of its grip as early as possible, before it becomes much young and strong to jeer on us with its nice little lessons at times. Getting detached from it, takes a little time which we reinforced for years. Otherwise, it invites only disgraces at the end.

I scrupulously want to disclose that how this ego housed inside me like worms. Always I adopted a dictum like “tit for tat”. If I can do something good for someone, then why can’t I anticipate the same from him? That’s so simple. I can’t sit quite, until I show off my reaction due to my ego which sits atop my wish list. Unto I found it futile, I was nurturing this monster for years.

Here is the lesson which pulled me out of the hell of my false belief: Once, there was a phone call from one of my relatives when my attendant was busy for my admission process keeping me seated at the reception counter in a hospital. I attended the phone call at once as I knew the person at the other end although; I was on a wheel chair then.

He dialed for a simple query knowing that he would get a convenient answer from me. But, due to my worsening physical condition I selected the negate option and also let him to know in brief the reason behind. I promised to help him out in this regard soon I improve my health a little. He simply detached the phone in no time after airing his last word ‘okay’. May be he flatly overlooked to know my ongoing health problem or his own issue might have distracted him to go through my falling situation.

Later on, there was no phone call no message from his side till I had been discharged from the hospital. It astounded me for a substantial period of time. I remember and also it is relevant to mention that, once, I assisted his mother by accumulating a few volumes of blood including mine who was suffering from blood cancer. I could lend some more respiration to her who was lying on a death bed. But alas, his subdued behavior had hurt my pride! How come a person forgets one’s help for which he cried once?

His treacherous mentality had made me to think over and again. But then, I could unravel my ego which I incubated for years that the reciprocity of help for a help should not be expected. It is a dangerous fantasy which kicks one hard who has a desire for win-win mindset all the time.

The greed of ego goes on swelling which never been pleased and its level of satisfaction never been set even if one has everything in one’s possession. One may get rid of an ego but it reappears in other form changing its thought and concept which keep sticking to our self-image. The annoyance we react comes from ego based belief. Let ego should not hijack one’s emotion to overreact to repent later on.