On ego and how to subdue it

“Complaining is one of the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself.”
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— Eckhart Tolle

Your most significant enemy is your ego. Seneca said that we suffer more from imagination than reality, and that is true.

Half of the problems in your life never happened. Ponder about it for a second.

Our ego is a nebulous mind-identification trap that will make you fall and suffer.

The obliteration of your ego is the only path to salvation. Suffering and frustration are the best opportunities to shine a light upon your path.

Problems will never cease to exist in your life. Remind yourself that it is never too late to restart your journey and learn how to respond to all frustrations and challenges you have in place. Once you learn how to respond, you will see the insanity we all go through during our existence.

You can have a better life, diet, business right now. Start by changing how you respond to difficulties in your life.

Life is perfect as is, right now. Unfortunately, we rapidly create mental models and constructs based on archetypes of other people’s perceptions of our being.

Do you think you will be happy when you solve a problem with your business partner? When you make more money? When you find the love of your life?

Why torture yourself, commanding stupid dependability of your happiness onto what needs to happen?

Let me ask you a question: Who are you? Or better, who do you think you are?

Are you a CEO, a VC, a lawyer? A graduate of a prestigious university? Is that what defines you as a person? No, of course not. Your name, where you are from, how you were raised? Is that how you define it? Also not. You are a soul, reincarnated in the current moment to evolve and persist. You made this choice, as there were aspects you had to work and develop.

Everything right now is perfect.

In the end, there is no real definition of one's existence.

You are who you are, not what the ego mental model tells you. If you hear that voice inside of you, know that it is a voice, not you! Stop identifying with it.

Why do you care about what other people think of you? Why do you get frustrated, angry, or impatient when things don’t go exactly the way you would like them to be?

Allan Kardec’s analysis of the ego is straightforward and profound: our earth plane passions, emotionally deviate the real reason on why we are on earth alongside the people we share time with.

Do you believe you need to live in a particular house or neighborhood to be happy? Do you think you have to wear certain types of clothes to make a statement to others fully? Do you believe that by raising money from a reputable investor, then your company will succeed? That you will only be capable of finding joy once you have the right people in your life?

There are all mental fallacies you create because you are identified with the voice in your mind, telling you that yes, this is good for me — oh, this is not good for me.

When you perish, you will not take any material possessions to the other side. Ultimately, financial resources don’t belong to you; they belong to Nature and Infinite Intelligence. Understand that the more you have, the higher the responsibility of sharing and serving others.

Ego elects the presumption setup of you thinking that the world owes you something, that it just belongs to you. That is not true.

I have my own spiritual beliefs, but try to make no judgments of other beings that have different belief systems than mine.

What about those moments when you judge a stranger in an elevator?

How fast do we go and think about who they are and what they do, only to let that go a few seconds later? It is laughable.

Liberate yourself from the inner voice.

Examples of ego, at supernova scale: Twitter + Venture Capital, The Catholic Church and its dogmas, Donald Trump — ego, unfortunately, is everywhere and the cause of all sickness in our world.

The preoccupation of the mind is absolute insanity.

I have found a few helpful frameworks to daily punch my ego in the face. I hope it helps you too:

1. Practice gratitude — I try to spend 5-10 minutes daily giving thanks to everything I have and for the opportunity to live another day.
2. Practice charity work in silence — as started developing my spiritual journey, I learned that volunteering and donating to others in need feels terrific. It is impossible to be unhappy when you help another person without expecting anything in return. Most importantly, don’t brag or share your acts of kindness. A lot of people use social media for that (I am also guilty of that) — refrain from posting when you act with virtue. Just respond with virtue.
3. Eat mindfully — I am increasingly finding joy by just sitting and eating. No AirPods, no podcast, no cellphone. Just eat and look at your surroundings.

Be well & let go.