IDENTITY NEED OF THE EGO

My brothers’ wife gave birth to a baby boy on the 1^st of February and it being a premature baby was placed under incubation. She was recuperating herself in the hospital and I was visiting every evening. One day it so happened that I went to the hospital in the afternoon itself and found the room empty. I asked the staff and was told that she was given a discharge in the morning. I phoned my brother and he said that he forgot to inform me. I was hurt and angry for a moment. Why I was not told? I was visiting everyday and all of a sudden I find that I am not important in the scheme of events. Oh, what a painful let down. That too by my own brother.

I learnt something from this episode. What did I learn?

Ego does not like to be cold shouldered. It wants to be known to be someone and if possible someone well known. It likes to be acknowledged, accepted, recognized and respected. It wants to be pampered and loved. It has an image of its own and spends most of its waking hours in projecting and protecting that image. Should anybody try to ignore or humiliate that image, the misery is immense. Its sphere of influence could be small and could be even one single individual, but never the less it desires to be considered as important. In this life it is very painful to be alone and not having someone to shower love and importance at you. Everyone wants to feel needed and have a place for himself or herself in this world. The two locations where everyone expects to be loved and respected are home and work. If your parents and siblings don’t give you the importance then atleast your spouse must. If your boss or seniors do not give you the importance then your peers and colleges must. Atleast someone has to be there to accept you as you are with all your rainbow characteristics. Thus the ego needs an external support to believe its reality.

Why does this happen?

The ego by itself is fragile. It is a bundle of feelings and emotions, all work of the mind. It is the nature of the mind to cling on to these feelings and to perpetuate them. The ego for its existence depends on one the self ego itself and second on other egos. When an event happens, for it to be classified as good or bad, the response or feedback of the other egos are evaluated. If the response is not immediately available then it is imagined on the screen of the mind. When others do anything by which one feels happy then the event is marked as good and its repeat is craved. When others do anything by which one feels unhappy then the event is marked as bad and its repeat is avoided. One uses every tool, technique and emotion for such a repeat and avoidance.

How to treat this?

All feelings rise and pass away. To try and perpetuate it is an exercise in futility. To depend on others for ones’ own happiness is madness. To feel needed and loved by others is to perpetuate or prolong the ego. It will always lead to misery some way or other. Therefore one has to look at events that happen with detachment. My brother or his wife had no intention to humiliate me. They love me for sure. That morning probably the doctor unexpectedly decided to give her the discharge and in the process of taking her to the baby for feeding (at another hospital) and then home, they somehow forgot to inform me. It happens. I myself forgot so many important tasks of course all unintentionally. If I am now going to imagine that my brother does not consider me important, then I would be making my life miserable for years to come. And then so what if he has really snubbed me. Thanks to him I have learned about my ego in this process. Whatever happens happens for the good.