Thought 60: Man is egocentric

All of us are egocentric; some persons are more egocentric than others. We react to events, to situations and to people. It is this reaction, which results in either happiness or unhappiness to you. If you do not react, there is neither happiness nor unhappiness for you – which, of course, is an ideal situation. But we are not living in an ideal world; nor are we gods; we are all ordinary human beings with normal expectations and normal reactive tendencies in life. Therefore, in real life, all of us react – to a more or less extent to events, situations and people.

Conflicts while dealing with other persons are very common – particularly when the egos clash. When our reaction to an event or a situation or a person entails a conflict, we become anxious and unhappy; sometimes we may even feel quite miserable. When our experience indicates that we are mostly in a state of unhappiness or misery, then, we should understand that we have not been able to keep our ego under control.

Before you begin to react, however, a thought enters your mind concerning the event or the situation or the person, about which/whom you are reacting. If you dismiss this thought as it arises in your mind, you do not react or you react minimally. But most persons cannot do that. Some persons, however, have a habit of sitting on this thought for hours on end, turning it over, again and again in their minds, thus, slowly working themselves into a fury. I used to do that a lot during my middle age. I could see I was miserable and achieved nothing by constantly brooding over issues, again and again, to no purpose - but I could not stop this habit. My wife, Sithadevi, who is a very pleasant, positive and calm person, observed this. She helped me eventually to overcome this habit. Once I was able to successfully do that, I was peaceful - and happy.

Since, ego is a sense of inflated self-importance, arising out of false identification with the body-mind complex, the more ego-centric one is, the more severe his reaction to an event, situation or a person is going to be – and vice-versa. In general, the more you dwell on an issue in your mind, the more severely you react to it. This kind of reaction always spells out anxiety and unhappiness for you - which is purely self-inflicted. But of course, it is the same ego that drives you also to positively achieve things in life – when it is kept under control.

Thus, ego is a double-edged sword; it is not a bad thing, if used to achieve things, which advance you in the positive direction in this world. But if used to satisfy your whims and fancies (arising out of your likes and dislikes), ego is bad, because it causes you avoidable misery on account of reactions to events, situations and people. I am not saying that you should not react – some measured reaction under certain circumstances, no doubt, is in order. However, over-reacting, or excessive reacting would only cause you avoidable misery.