Protecting Your Ego Isn't Making You Happy
How my fear of baseball and Go-Karting exposed a lie we all have believed.
Last time, we talked about our inherent value as human beings. Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll dive into a very closely related concept which often takes over when we fail to ground ourselves in our true value.
The makeshift baseball diamond
Back in my junior high days, I went to summer camp every year. I loved almost everything about camp: the chance to make new friends, to spend time in the beauty of nature, and there was always that one cute boy that I got to see. But there was one thing about camp that made me debate if it was worth all those good things. You want to know what that thing was? Recreation time. Because we had to play a sport.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were supposed to do something, but you knew you were bad at it, so you avoided it at all costs? That’s me, with any sport. As a kid, I never played sports, so I was bad at them by default. So, when the counselors announced it was rec time and everyone ran for the makeshift ball diamond down the hill in front of the lodge, I ran to my cabin to hide. One of the counselors came to find me, and she patiently listened to me, tears in my eyes, as I explained how I wasn’t any good at sports so I didn’t want to play.
If I could go back ten years and tell myself one thing in that moment, you want to know what I would say?
“Miriam, kill your ego. It’s not making you any happier.” Let me explain.
Ego is defined as “a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.” Don’t miss the subtle word sense: our ego is all about how we feel, not about our objective worth or value. And here’s the tricky thing about our feelings: sometimes, they lie to us. When it comes to our ego, it can be particularly dangerous to trust our feelings to tell us what to do. Because here’s the deal: our ego has one goal, and one goal only: protect itself. How does our ego achieve its goal? By convincing us to never do anything that we might not be good at or that people might make fun of us for.
Think about it: when is the last time you chose not to do something that, deep down, you actually wanted to do? Why did you choose that? Did you choose not to raise your hand in class because your friends might think you’re nerdy for caring about learning? Did you choose not to pursue a new project at work because it’s safer to stick with what you already know you’re good at? Did you have the chance to share a piece of art you created, but decided it was safer to hide your creativity in case someone would make fun of you for it? Odds are, nine times out of ten, when we choose to not do something that deep down we want to do, it’s because we let our ego boss us around. And while I’m not here to tell you it’s easy to turn the tables, I am here to tell you it’s worth it.
To kill our ego means to recognize where the fear is coming from—a lie that we’re somehow worth less or don’t have the right to do something we’re not the best at—and we look it in the eye and do the thing anyway. If I had killed my ego that day at summer camp, I’m confident I would have found joy instead of anxiety. Not because I would have magically been good at baseball (to this day, I still usually duck and run when someone throws something in my direction), but because I would have been free to enjoy an activity with my friends instead of held back by my own insecurity. Our ego tells us we will be happier if we listen to it. Our ego is wrong.
The Go-Kart track
Just a couple months ago, I found myself in an eerily similar situation, and I was planning to make the same disappointing decision I did ten years earlier at summer camp. I was looking down from the balcony at a Go-Kart track, and while deep down I thought it would be fun to race, my ego was freaking out.
One of the most fun parts of my job is that every few months, my sales trainee group gets together for training at our company’s corporate headquarters, and our managers set up a fun evening activity one of the nights. This particular night in September, we’re at the Go-Kart track. Super fun, right? Well, for everyone except me, who’s never been in a Go-Kart before (not because I didn’t have the opportunity, but because I was afraid every other time and always backed out), and I’m not about to expose my lack of racing experience in front of all my peers. Because, the really challenging part about having 27 other sales trainees in similar roles, is everyone’s ego starts to get a little sensitive whenever we get together. It’s natural: we’re all new to this adult job thing, and we’re all trying to prove ourselves, even when it comes to Go-Karts. So, I hide in the shuffle as everyone is signing up.
Enter: my buddy Paxton. Pax and I have been friends for several years, and he’s actually one of the reasons I applied to work at Corteva. So, I tend to trust his opinion. He notices me avoiding the sign-up sheet and slides up next to me.
“Hey Miriam, you are going to race with us, aren’t you?” he says, already knowing my answer.
“Well, no, I’d just slow everyone down so I think I’ll sit this one out.” I use my favorite excuse for not stepping out of my comfort zone: disguising my fear as selflessness.
Pax isn’t having it. “Oh come on, no you won’t! And even if you do, no one will care. We’ll have fun, and no one will make fun of you.”
Ouch. I didn’t say anything about being afraid of being made fun of, but he knew. And that’s the thing about our egos: they tend to be pretty consistent when it comes to convincing us that being laughed at is the worst thing in the world. It’s not fun, no doubt, but it’s not the thing we should be most afraid of. When we’re all worked up about protecting our egos, we might succeed at not being laughed at, but we’re probably not very happy.
You see, more often than not, everyone else is also worried about exposing their weaknesses, so we’re more in the same boat than we usually think we are. In fact, when talking with a mentor later about the whole week of training, it dawned on me: this whole Go-Kart situation was actually reflecting the bigger thing going on all week.
Stay tuned for the next post, two weeks from now, to read on.
Journal Prompt of the Week
Where in your life are you believing the lie that protecting your ego will make you happier? How might you begin the process of killing your ego?
Love this story! Ego and comparison - two killers of joy!