Ego, Arrogance, and Self-Esteem

 by: Edward B. Toupin

The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are not our only motivators. Whether you realize it or not, our underlying purpose in life is to define and pursue our true purpose in life. Regardless of what we feel or do, we are all simply searching for some type of meaning within our own individual existence that can somehow take us further. However, many problems we face in our lives arise from the lack of true life meaning.

We sometimes lose our direction and become distressed about our circumstances. Our body goes through the stages of stress, including panic, defiance, and fatigue. When we encounter too much stress, we become exhausted and in a last ditch effort, we replace true meaning with an imitation meaning, and make this the primary focus of life. We then lose our self-esteem and direction under layers of defense mechanisms, ego and arrogance, that not only destroy our external world, but they can obscure our own view of the world.

Ego occurs when you have no foundation of belief or clarity of purpose in your world. Ego is cleverness to hide ignorance and obscures clarity. Ego provides you with the mechanism to affect everyone around you negatively to bring them down so that you can feel better about yourself.

Arrogance occurs when you hold on to useless and malfunctioning ways of living life, but you're unsure of its stability. Arrogance is the stubborn conviction that, against all odds, you will push forward down a path that is obviously wrong for you and everyone around you. It is a situation that develops when you begin to lose faith in your own beliefs and direction, yet you still believe, against your own best judgement, that you can succeed along the same path.

Self-esteem can only exist when you take the time to clear yourself of those things that no longer work, take pride in yourself, and make a realistic plan to better your life and yourself. It is not a feeling of power over others, but it is an acceptance of others and a feeling of power over your own life.