I have a lot of struggles with my ego. The job I have, the life I have led, and the training I have received have inadvertently placed me in a position of power in most places in my life and the temptation to abuse that power is like an itch that I just don’t have the arm length to reach. You would think that a modicum of education, physical training and philisophical studies would make for a more humble man, but I have traced the culprit down in this fashion:
1: Knowledge is power
2: Power corrupts
3: Corruption is ego based
When I was a dancer, I discovered that being in the performance arts spotlight is pure ego candy, you can say anything or do anything to pretty much anyone, and get away with it. Hell, they’ll probably come back for more, in the off-chance that one day they’ll be able to do the same to some poor sap. If the crowd loves you, you’re the star. And stars don’t share their light, they shine unto themselves.
In the professional world, I have chosen a vocation that makes the rest of the office immediately and intrinsically dependant on me: I am a Network Engineer. I am an IT Administrator. I am a COMPUTER GEEK. Whatever you think you know about computers, odds are that I not only know more than you, I’ll probably make you feel insignificant while I demonstrate it. At least, my pantheon will, I personally try to be civil, gracious and understanding. Which is no mean feat after you come to me, head down, laptop computer in hand, and tell me that your email won’t work for the 100th time. And I just KNOW I’m gonna clean out a bazillion cookies from your internet cache that point to “Bondage Goth Sluts” or “Mexican Booty Bitches” before I clean out the dozen or so malware programs you so ignorantly downloaded into your registry along with your Swedish child porn.
Martial arts are, in particular, a great opportunity to spectacularly plummet to the ground with smoke trailing out of your ass in front of a fan-packed stadium, through no other reason than your very own precious, overbearing self-centeredness. Mongo is MANLY MAN! I can kick and punch, grunt grunt! The problem is that no matter how great you are at whatever art you do, eventually you will run into some quiet little nerd who trains his ass off but doesn’t say a thing about it. And he will fuck you up in nine different languages. I have had some STELLAR examples of this in my training past as well! The inherent problem with martial arts training is that it can take a mild, timid person & instill an ego in him the size of the friggin’ Swiss Alps. If the person training already has an inflated ego, they usually just stand back and watch that bastard expand.
As a martial arts TEACHER, well, that is even worse. You are in a position that historically both draws subordinates to you & demands that you verbally and physically abuse them. You are pretty much given the keys to your own private kingdom and people will pay you to scream at them.
I blame tradition for this, personally. We are taught how to fight, but seldom given the tools to equally control ourselves. We attain elevated levels of stamina & many of us go through a studmuffin phase, but no one ever tells us to keep our dicks out of the dojo. There are a set of Taoist exercises that are very popular called “Happy Woman Techniques” (I’m not joking, look this up) but I can’t seem to find any ancient scrolls on “Provided-For Family Techniques” or “Monogamous Husband Techniques”.
Personally, I don’t think ego is something you necessarily “conquer” per se, there are times when it’s absolutely necessary in your life. There are times when humility is the WRONG answer to a problem. Instead, I think you should strive for an equilibrium between ego and humility. It’s a constantly sliding scale, and the trick is realizing when there is an over-abundance of one, or a latent absence of the other. You NEED a certain amount of ego at your job, in your car, at the supermarket. You need the confidence it supplies to face traffic, stand your ground about a point in front of your boss, or change lanes. But you also need to be able to tell it to BACK OFF when some asslick driver flips you off or cuts you off, and not fly into an irrational rage. You need to be receptive when your boss says “I understand your concerns Bobbe, but we’re still going to do it my way”. The hardest test of ego can usually be defined in that moment when your social superior approaches you (at work, Karate School, what have you) and tells you how to do something that you are light-years more knowledgeable than he is in. And you have to obey him anyway. Some self-help gurus try to lump this under “character building” but it’s really that sliding scale of ego again.
This posting is probably going to disappoint you, because for once I don’t have any cut-and-dried answers. As I said earlier, I struggle with this every day. Some I win, some I blow all to hell and back. If I’m lucky, I sometimes get the opportunity to change things about me that could use some adjustments. Other times I am often doing or saying something annoying to someone & won’t know it until months if not years later.
I have a couple of tricks that keep myself in check, though. There is a saying I got from the “Dune” series that I have always found insightful, and I apply it to myself, especially when I am in front of my students:
“Here lies a toppled God, and his fall was not a small one. We did but make his pedestal a narrow and a tall one.”
--The master’s warning against arrogance
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