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Reflecting on my past several posts and the past several years of my life, I'm discovering that I've become alarmingly ego-centric in ways that aren't healthy.
This isn't especially surprising; business classes, social isolation, and the drama of emphasizing myself as the most correct person in the room (in many cases, this was warranted; in many more, it was not) have all led to this boorish attitude towards life that revolves around measurable personal achievement. This isn't how I want to be, and I've emotionally and spiritually exhausted myself by beating myself up over it instead of taking the right steps to fix it, because I simply don't know which those are.
Helpful in this process have been my readings of Tricycle magazine and its related paraphernalia. For example, I subscribe to their Daily Dharma feed and, surprisingly, have read it nearly every single day for two years now. It hasn't been helpful because I'm a Buddhist, mind you (my worldview is much too eclectic for that), but because it offers advice on emphasizing love and compassion, which I feel are qualities I am flatly terrible at expressing. It's also offered advice in working with de-emphasizing the ego as the sole driving force in my life.
I need help, though. Not necessarily from a psychologist (as these matters live at the level of high-functioning actualization with a large subjective and philosophical component), but from people whom understand this process at a fundamental level. I've considered taking more of my now-extremely-limited vacation time off work to visit one of the local Buddhist retreats, because I feel it would greatly help me. This isn't a be-all or an end-all, though, and more help is definitely desired.
Do any of you have experience in the area of dismantling ego-centrism that you feel might be valuable here? Crisp, specific advice with links would be the most help.
This isn't especially surprising; business classes, social isolation, and the drama of emphasizing myself as the most correct person in the room (in many cases, this was warranted; in many more, it was not) have all led to this boorish attitude towards life that revolves around measurable personal achievement. This isn't how I want to be, and I've emotionally and spiritually exhausted myself by beating myself up over it instead of taking the right steps to fix it, because I simply don't know which those are.
Helpful in this process have been my readings of Tricycle magazine and its related paraphernalia. For example, I subscribe to their Daily Dharma feed and, surprisingly, have read it nearly every single day for two years now. It hasn't been helpful because I'm a Buddhist, mind you (my worldview is much too eclectic for that), but because it offers advice on emphasizing love and compassion, which I feel are qualities I am flatly terrible at expressing. It's also offered advice in working with de-emphasizing the ego as the sole driving force in my life.
I need help, though. Not necessarily from a psychologist (as these matters live at the level of high-functioning actualization with a large subjective and philosophical component), but from people whom understand this process at a fundamental level. I've considered taking more of my now-extremely-limited vacation time off work to visit one of the local Buddhist retreats, because I feel it would greatly help me. This isn't a be-all or an end-all, though, and more help is definitely desired.
Do any of you have experience in the area of dismantling ego-centrism that you feel might be valuable here? Crisp, specific advice with links would be the most help.
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(Anonymous) 2012-05-05 05:33 pm (UTC)(link)Par example, you could try to lower the ego-centrism by paying more attention to others.. here's one: Try to find a reason to compliment someone, one of your co-workers perhaps, and do so.