Building Pride & Ego

We all relish the times when our personal pride bucket becomes full and overflowing… our egos grow exponentially as a result of the overwhelming fullness of ourselves. Many people fill a void in their life by focusing on growing their pride and associated ego. Some do it knowingly while others do it just because they have been trained to feed these transient, fickle, and often times, offensive wells of personal satisfaction. Others even knowingly reject the fundamental neediness pride and ego brings upon the owner. How do you react to these vapid traits in your life? Do you actively pursue situations that grow and feed your pride and ego? Or, do you gently wave away the adulation and praise being thrown at your feet and praise those who truly deserve the attention?

My wife and I were having a conversation today and I had sort of an epiphany about myself. In my late teens and early 20’s, I realized that all I cared about was my own self. I wanted to be the smartest. I wanted to be the best. I wanted everyone to know and to see that. I actively searched for situations where I could grow my pride and my associated ego. I succeeded at my search and I felt pretty good about myself. My self-serving needs were being met and my pride and ego were about as massive as I can ever remember. I was insanely proud of myself.

However, sometime in my mid to late 20’s, I realized that my selfish needs were simple and short lived. I realized that life is better served by caring for other people and putting their needs ahead of mine. At this point in my life, I began to actively search for someone I could spend the rest of my life with. I was ready for commitment. I was ready to grow up. After serving myself for so many years, I now understood that to truly fill your being with an unending supply of personal nutrients for growth, you needed to focus upon those you care about in your life rather than your own existence.

I was lucky enough to find my wonderful wife around this time in my life… my selfish mentality had changed and I was ready for her to enter my life. The 9+ years since have been continually getting better.

As I look back, I know that if I had continued down the path of pursuing my individual needs of pride and ego, I would have missed my opportunity to meet my wife. I would have solely focused upon myself and missed the path in my journey that led to true happiness. We are all given a chance in our lives to make the choice between pride and ego or caring for others. Where are you at in your life? In all honesty, are you pursuing your own selfish desires or are you pursuing what will truly make a lasting difference in your life? Relationships and family are the lasting differences in our lives.

Being that we live in America, we are all taught that we can do and be anything. We are at the center of our known universe. Serving and satisfying our own needs has been taught to us as our primary goal from the beginning of human consciousness in our generation. We can make anything happen if we truly want it. I’ve even seen books tell me that if I truly believe in something that is going to happen, the good vibes in the universe will provide me my wish. You may have heard of a bestselling book touting this idea, “The Secret.” I hate to tell you, but that’s simply not true.

These days, I still have the urge for the prideful event and I always feel the twinge of my ego wanting to grow, but I do my best to keep these chains of desire out of my life. I have found that my life is much happier serving the needs of my family than serving the needs of myself. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I’m talking about and I’m sure there are those of you out there that are still in the self serving mode. In the end, we all have to live through our own trials and errors and if you can be honest with yourself, you will realize that pride and ego are actually some of the chains that will continually hold you down and feed depression and unhappiness.

Serving pride and ego are some of the worst things we succumb to doing as human beings. Break the chains and realize that serving the needs of others is where true happiness is found.