Don't plan on killing your ego before you read this

 To grow as a spiritual being, you need to let go of your ego.

You’ve heard it so many times that you don’t question it anymore.

You may not know how to put it into practice yet. But erasing the ego seems to be an obvious step forward.

In the mainstream talk about mindfulness and spirituality, the ego is usually pictured as something bad or at least — redundant. You’re told that as long as you’re controlled by your ego, you can’t surrender to the natural flow of life.

Abandoning the ego seems necessary to attain the bliss of equanimity and mindfulness that you’re after.

But when it comes to letting go of your ego in the real world — what does it actually mean? How does this translate into your actions and choices?

And should it really be your number one priority?

In the world where numerous traditions blend together, spiritual growth can be a tricky endeavour. If you don’t have a teacher, you’re often bound to be your own guide. You do your best to assemble the scattered pieces of spiritual knowledge into one coherent picture.

But with such a complex endeavour, there’s a high chance that something gets distorted along the way.

What if I told you that letting go of ego isn’t something you should really pursue?

What Is Ego And Why We Think It’s Useless

To put it short: ego is who you tell yourself you are.

In this article, I will use the above as our operational definition of “ego” or “self.” This simple definition is coherent with both Western psychology and Buddhist teachings.

A hundred years ago, Sigmund Freud identified ego to be the “mediator” between our unconscious, “animal” impulses and the demands of society. Modern psychology still draws on his work today:

“A more modern conception that is certainly related to Freud’s is to consider the ego as the self-consciousness system. The self-consciousness system is the narrating portion of human consciousness that reflects on one’s thoughts, feelings and actions and inhibits or legitimizes them to one’s self and to others. In this sense, ego is very similar to what is meant by the term identity (…).” — Gregg Henriques, PhD

Buddhist scholars agree that the ego is a mental construct we need to navigate the world. While in the Buddhist context you may more often run into the phrase “the sense of separate self,” its core meaning is very similar to the Western concept of ego.

The Buddhist tradition recognizes the psychological importance of the ego. But as Buddhist teachings about the “illusion of separate self” migrated to the West, the “illusion” part became more pronounced than the usefulness of ego.

The result is that many Westerners who explore Buddhist ideas today get the impression that they should kill their ego. It only seems logical once you grasp that it’s illusory. On top of that, we often judge the ego as “bad,” because we associate it with selfishness and arrogance.

That’s how I used to think about it. When I discovered mindfulness, I went on a quest to “let go of my ego.” To me, this meant ignoring my desires and “surrendering” to what life presented me with.

Even when I found myself with toxic people or in abusive situations, I abode by my quest. I was convinced that “just letting it all be” was the right thing to do.

This attitude caused me to harm myself in many ways — from burning out at work to engaging in the wrong intimate relationships. After a few years of religiously following the doctrine of “ego abandonment,” I started suspecting that something was wrong with it.

The doctrine that I constructed from the scattered pieces of spiritual knowledge clearly wasn’t working for me. I needed to dig deeper. I started with one fundamental question:

Did the Buddha really advise to disregard the ego?

What Happens When Ego Tries To Eradicate Itself

When ancient ideas get transferred to another culture, they often lose their context. Because they are detached from their roots and planted on foreign ground, the fruits they bear are often deformed.

The concept of selflessness, useful in navigating spiritual path within the Buddhist culture, may bring very different results when planted in a contemporary Western mind.

One reason this is so is the self-hatred which is so common in Western culture. Buddhist abbot Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out:

“The Dalai Lama isn’t the only Asian Buddhist teacher surprised at the amount of self-hatred found in the West. Unfortunately, a lot of people with toxic super-egos have embraced the teaching on egolessness as the Buddha’s stamp of approval on the hatred they feel toward themselves.”

When you interpret self-hatred — or even just unhealthily low self-esteem — as a sign of egolessness, you experience spiritual bypass. The term was coined by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. He used it to describe a more general “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”

Spiritual bypass happens when you try to erase your ego before you make it functional. This usually leads to reinforcing your psychological issues, instead of resolving them.

Consider this story Jack Kornfield tells in his book A Path With Heart. He describes an encounter with a woman who claimed she experienced a deep sense of selflessness in her spiritual practice.

“As she walked, I pointed out a heaviness in her walk and a contracted quality of her body. Soon she could see it too. As she explored her experience, it turned out not to be emptiness at all, but numbness and deadness. As we talked, it became clear that her body and feelings had been shut down for years. Her self-esteem was low, and she felt herself incapable of doing worthwhile things in the world. She confused this inner feeling with the profound teachings of insubstantiality.”

Aware of the trap of spiritual bypassing, many Buddhist teachers don’t encourage students to begin their spiritual path with the eradication of ego. More often, they talk about working on a more skilful concept of self — “reclaiming your true nature” — in the first place.

Instead of abandoning your ego, you’ll be wiser to develop it into more healthy, skilful forms first. But what does it mean in practice?

Why You Should Make Friends With Your Ego

“Neither Buddhism nor psychotherapy seeks to eradicate the ego. To do so would render us either helpless or psychotic. We need our egos to navigate the world, to regulate our instincts, to exercise our executive function, and to mediate the conflicting demands of self and other.” — Mark Epstein

Buddhism views a healthy ego as necessary to interact with the world in skilful ways. This includes enduring a meditative practice.

Jack Kornfield stresses that “a strong and healthy sense of self is needed to withstand the meditative process of dissolution and come to a deep realization of emptiness.”

If your ego is wounded with afflictions such as self-belittlement, you need to reclaim a balanced sense of self in the first place. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu says, a healthy ego is necessary to have an “honest sense of how to learn from your past mistakes for the sake of greater happiness in the future.”

Because here’s the thing: the Buddha advised to use the pursuit of happiness as the most trustworthy compass in life. However, what we need to understand is that Buddhism doesn’t see happiness as a zero-sum game.

The notion of benefiting at the cost of someone else only makes sense if you see happiness as dependent on external pleasures. When you learn to create happiness inside of yourself, the whole paradigm shifts.

Suddenly, your own happiness naturally adds to the happiness of other people. It becomes a team sport instead of a competition.

In the Buddhist paradigm, the pursuit of happiness isn’t just about you. It’s about the collective amount of happiness you can bring into the world.

From this perspective, you need a healthy ego not just for your own sake. You need to “upgrade” your identity so that it’s more helpful to you and the rest of the world.

This way, your natural pursuit to be happy becomes the only compass you need. It motivates you to update your sense of self into more skilful forms. Inevitably, it also leads to letting go of your ego — but that comes as an end result, not the starting point of the process.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu expressed it this way:

“Only on the highest levels of practice, where even the most skillful concepts of self get in the way of the ultimate happiness, did the Buddha advocate totally abandoning them.”

5 Practical Tips To Skilfully Evolve Your Ego

“You must be somebody before you can be nobody” — Jack Engler

After looking at the original Buddhist ideas, it seems that all that “selflessness buzz” misses the point.

Letting go of ego is an effect of following a spiritual path, rather than a step you should take.

I experienced this to be true on my path. As I tried to erase my ego in unhealthy situations, I allowed others to walk all over me. I gave people consent to make fun of me, abuse and offend me. I thought that by doing so, I was practising selflessness.

Turned out this was my way of bypassing the real issue I had to deal with: my lifelong low self-esteem.

Eventually, I understood that I needed to resolve that issue before I could experience selflessness. As I started working on it, I learned a few lessons that can be helpful in working with your ego, too.

1. Create a strong sense of self, or your environment will do it for you.

The people you encounter shape your attitudes and behaviours. If you have a well-defined personality, you can, to some extent, mitigate their influences and remain “your own person.” But when you’re vulnerable or confused about who you are — watch out with whom you spend your time. Chances are that others’ views of you may become more convincing than your own.

2. Practice focus.

Without the basic ability to focus, it’s hard to determine what kind of problems you have with your ego. It takes deliberate attention over a period of time to identify your areas of struggle. If you want to learn how to observe your internal world, learn the basics of mindfulness meditation.

3. Commit to one spiritual practice.

It’s okay to try different things here and there for a while. But many teachers emphasize this: after a period of exploration, it’s important that you commit to one spiritual path. Because a lot of people walked this path before you and described it, you’ll have a coherent roadmap for your practice.

4. Seek a teacher.

I still haven’t found a spiritual guide, but I’m looking for one. Meanwhile, I find it helpful to connect with people who are also active spiritual seekers. Sharing my own experiences and hearing their insights can be a great help. Even if you don’t have an “official” teacher, it’s still valuable to learn from fellow practitioners.

5. Balance discipline and compassion towards yourself.

The way you treat yourself is vital in developing a healthy ego. On one hand, spiritual growth is a pursuit of self-improvement, on the other — a practice of accepting yourself the way you are. To provide for both sides of the equation, you need, respectively, discipline and compassion.

To start with, try to accept your ego as it is right now. From that place of acceptance, it will be easier to discipline yourself and cultivate a practice that allows you to expand your sense of self.

Your Ego Will Lead You To Liberation

You just learned a lot about the Buddhist concept of egolessness and cultivating a healthy sense of self. Hopefully, you understand the role of the ego better now.

But how can you act upon this new understanding?

First of all, remember that there’s nothing wrong with having an ego. On the contrary, it’s a necessary part of any person’s psyche.

Further, there’s a big difference between selfish behaviour and having a healthy sense of self. According to the Buddha, the latter helps you reach for authentic happiness.

Trying to forcefully erase your ego altogether won’t lead you to happiness. Building a healthy one instead is where you should start.

A healthy ego will show you that happiness isn’t a zero-sum game. Your happiness doesn’t happen at the cost of another.

Instead, the authentic happiness you source from within will naturally add to others’ sense of wellbeing — alongside your own.

As your sense of self becomes more established, it helps you see which behaviours and attitudes are useful for this authentic happiness. This will allow you to access inner wisdom that you’ve always had within you.

Over time, your more skilful concepts of self help you attain higher and higher levels of happiness.

Then, one day, when the ego is the only thing standing in your way to experiencing ever greater bliss… it may just naturally let go of you.

Adopting a sceptical mind helps interrogate the truth

 A young man caught a small bird and held it behind his back. He then asked: “Master, is the bird I hold in my hands alive or dead?

He thought this was a grand opportunity to play a trick on the old man.

If the master answered “dead,” the young man was planning to set the bird free. If the master answered “alive,” he would simply wring its neck.

The master spoke: “The answer is in your hands.”

Certainty is a trap— it makes us feel in control, even if we have to deceive others.

The young man didn’t care about the master’s answer — he wanted to be in control. The young man was willing to kill a bird to be right.

We want life to go according to our plans. We wish to know what will happen next. However, life is out of everyone’s control. Your cravings for certainty can derail you from experiencing life as is.

The certainty mindset —wanting to have ‘the’ truth — can stop you from growing as a person. Rather than discovering life, you get stuck in what it is familiar.

The world is fluid and unexpected—life is always a surprise. You don’t need certainty; but to be open to challenging your truths. That’s the path for personal discovery — to seeing life sharply.

Certainty can cripple your life

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire

Being certain doesn’t mean that you have the right answer.

The mind is incredibly averse to uncertainty and ambiguity. When we don’t know something, we create our own reasonable explanation. According to cognitive science, we prefer to hold on to these invented justifications than to admit we don’t know what happened.

Having an answer is not correlated to seeing life sharply.

Social psychologist Arie Kruglanski coined the term ‘cognitive closure’, to describe our aversion toward ambiguity and uncertainty. We prefer having an answer as quickly as possible than to discover the truth.

During times of fear and anxiety the need for cognitive closure increases.

Studies have demonstrated that, after terrorist attacks, society feels an urge to find who’s responsible. Fear feeds rumors and fake versions — people share stories without any validation. The desire to punish someone gets everyone out of control — it becomes okay to accuse the first apparent suspect.

Being under attack rapidly affects our logic. Anyone is guilty until proven innocent — not the other way around, as it should be. That’s how the desire for certainty can cripple our lives.

The need for closure makes you see the world in black and white — you simply close your mind to new information.

Skepticism doesn't mean fighting reality

“Do you want to know what my secret is? I don’t mind what happens.” — Jiddhu Krishnamurti

Trying to find an answer is not wrong — being blinded by the need for quick resolution is the problem.

When we overreact, things get out of hands. The medicine becomes more dangerous than the disease we are trying to cure.

The opposite to the need for closure is skepticism. Rather than taking the first answer for real, you challenge the truth. You don’t let irrational fear dictate your answers.

Skepticism is not nihilism or being negative; it’s adding an extra filter. Rather than taking anything for granted, you want to validate the truth. You don’t take social constructs as true no matter how strong peer pressure is.

The need for certainty can shape your perception — your own stories cloud reality. You don’t do it on purpose, of course. We all fall victims of the mind tricks. Challenging your own beliefs requires training your mind.

Developing a critical mind will prevent you from taking the social constructs — rumors or not — for valid.

That’s how rumors get started in the office. One person creates the story and shares it with two different people. Then they wait and see. When someone listens a similar story coming from two different ‘sources,’ the rumor is validated.

Being skeptical doesn’t mean being rigid, dogmatic, hypercritical, or obtuse. You simply understand that you cannot react to the first answer, you want more evidence before buying into it.

Skepticism is not denialism either. Anything is possible (or not) until proven the contrary. Challenging a theory is how new lines of thinking are created. If you believe that one idea is an absolute truth, you don’t leave room for incremental improvement.

You can be a skeptic without being a cynic.

Cynicism is distrusting most information you see or hear, especially when our beliefs are being challenged. Cynics are tricky — they have a strong argument to debunk other people’s ideas, but have little support to justify their beliefs.

Cynics are intolerant — they have inflexible thoughts that leave no room for additional ideas.

Skepticism is not thinking that beliefs are wrong, but that they may be wrong.

There are two types of skepticism: negative and positive. By removing bad ideas, negative skepticism allows good ones to flourish.

Positive skepticism goes beyond the removal of false claims. The Greek word ‘skeptikos’ means “thoughtful.” While the need for closure is a reaction in the heat of the moment, being skeptical is less impulsive. It requires inquiring and reflecting.

Positive skepticism fuels critical thinking— it encourages you to get a deeper understanding of events or things.

Instead of taking the truth for granted, you question it first.

The truth will set you free

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” — Jim Davis

Our need for certainty might overshadow facts.

People who are certain of an opinion are more likely to act on it. The elections are a great example. When people are confidently in favor of candidate X, they are more likely to vote for that candidate than someone who is uncertain even though they support the same candidate.

The surer someone believes he/ she is right; the harder is to persuade that person that he/she might be wrong. When people feel sure, it’s harder to change their minds.

Certainty can get you stuck in a position; you shut down to new alternatives.

You have the freedom to choose. But the truth is not optional, right?

Neurologist Robert Burton argues that certainty is not a conscious choice, nor a thought process, but a sensation — it’s the ‘feeling of knowing.’ Like anger or fear, it doesn’t rely on a deep state of knowledge. The author explains how most times we are wrong even when we’re convinced we are right.

Ulric Neisser, the father of cognitive psychology, conducted the “Challenger study” to question what he called ‘flashbulb memories’ — how shocking, emotional events leave a vivid imprint on the mind.

Students were asked how they’d heard about the disaster, where they were, what they were doing at the time, etc. Neisser collected information the day following the incident. He repeated the experiment three years after. Students expressed high levels of confidence that their false memories of the explosion were more accurate than the descriptions they had written down one day after the explosion.

One student commented, “That’s my handwriting, but that’s not what happened.”

The autonomous rational mind is a myth. The answer, Burton argues, lies in accepting the limits of our ability to know and in “playing by the rules of scientific method.”

The concepts of the self and free will are innate useful fictions that allow us to function. As Samuel Johnson said, “All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience is for it.”

Modern neurophysiology tells us our decisions are made subconsciously before we are aware of deciding.

The way of the skeptical mind

“In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.” — René Descartes

Embrace positive skepticism

Turn challenging the truth into a habit. Once again, I’m not asking you to become a cynic and distrust everyone. Positive skepticism is about finding the other side of the story. To understand whether the sources and analysis are impartial.

Listen to both sides of a story. Look for heterogenous sources. Set your conclusions aside before read all the information. Ask: What if? to explore different hypothesis.

Avoid reacting as mobs do

Most crowds belong to an identifiable group — the collective beliefs dictate the crowd’s action. Fear and anxiety erase logic and rationality. All the mob cares is to find a scapegoat.

Beliefs blind individuals. When the mob is blind, the behaviors are even more damaging. Try to calm the mob before things go out of hand.

Be open to change your mind

It’s okay to believe something and then, after reviewing the facts, realize that either you were wrong or your memory was playing tricks. Like it happened to the participants of the “Challenger study.”

Changing your mind is wise. People who get stuck to what they believe is true, they stop learning.

Turn challenging truths into a healthy habit

Continually question the truth, especially yours. There is never a 100% guarantee that we are right. Burton suggests we use the words “I believe” instead of “I know.”

Admitting that ‘your truth’ is actually a belief set you free. It becomes easier to challenge your interpretation of real events.

Adopt a ‘maybe mindset’

The world is uncertain and continually mutating. What was right yesterday, will not be okay tomorrow. Scientists are constantly discovering new theories that debunk previous ones.

The same happens with life events — what seems positive today might unexpectedly turn into negative tomorrow. The truth is ‘provisional’ — adopt a ‘maybe mindset,’ as I explained here.

We don’t control life events.

Life is about discovery, not about being certain. Being skeptical will prevent you from taking things for granted — you will see life sharply.

It's fulfilling to lead an ordinary life

 We’re told that an ordinary life is a boring life. To live life fully, we need to do something different, something special. We need to stand out from the crowd and be someone memorable.

The problem with this way of thinking that, by definition, we can’t all be extraordinary. If we all did something extraordinary, it wouldn’t be extraordinary any more. Therefore the vast majority of us are “doomed” to live completely ordinary lives.

Well, I am here to tell you that it’s okay to be ordinary. Ordinary doesn’t have to mean dull, boring or unfulfilled. Read on to find out why you can stop worrying about doing anything amazing, because an ordinary life is all you need to be happy.

Why do we want to be extraordinary?

I think there are three main reasons why we think we need to live an extraordinary life.

1. We want to leave a legacy

There is an innate human desire to leave a “legacy” — some kind of mark to commemorate our existence and prove that we were really here. It’s one of the reasons many people have children, as a way of leaving a part of themselves behind. It’s also why people feel that they need to live an extraordinary life — they want to make sure that they are remembered after they’re gone.

2. We see other people being extraordinary

Social media means that we’re bombarded by images of other people’s “extraordinary lives.”

The prevalence of social media means that we spend a lot of time witnessing other people’s “extraordinary” lives. We see other people climbing mountains and jumping out of planes. We don’t see them driving to work or doing the washing up.

Human beings naturally compare themselves to others and being bombarded by these images makes us feel that our daily lives should be as exciting as everyone else’s highlight reel. 

3. We all think we’re special

It’s not just millennials who think they’re special. The last century has seen the rise of the “self” in most cultures and, these days, we are all rather obsessed with ourselves. We all want to stand out, to be seen and to be heard.

Somehow, we have started believing that we need to be special in order to be important. Unless we are extraordinary, we don’t matter.

Why we should stop trying to be extraordinary

So society and biology are encouraging us to strive for extraordinariness. Well, here are a few reasons why I think they’re both wrong:

Most people can’t name their 8 great-grandparents!

If you’re worrying about how you’ll be remembered, don’t. Most people can’t name their 8 great-grandparents. (Quick test: can you?) That means that, in a few short years after you die, it’s more than likely that nobody will remember you anyway.

Sorry if you find that depressing. It’s actually meant to be a liberating thought, to free you from the pressure to leave a legacy. There’s no need to waste your one precious life worrying about how you’ll be remembered. You can simply concentrate on living for now. Focus on how you can have a positive impact on the people you interact with now, rather than focussing on how an imaginary future generation will talk about you.

Ordinary doesn’t have to be boring

It’s the ordinary things that make us the happiest

Our culture frames ordinary as boring. We’re told that we shouldn’t want to live a life like everyone else, that we should strive for something different and better.

However, normal doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, the most “normal” things, like getting married or having a baby, can feel miraculous when they happen to you. Even the daily routine doesn’t have to be boring. The “9 to 5” is only mundane when we aren’t experiencing any growth or progression.

The irony of trying to live an extraordinary life is that it’s actually the ordinary things that make us happiest. If we find meaningful work, cultivate close relationships and develop our skills, this can create a deeply fulfilling life, even if it isn’t “special.” We don’t have to do something different to everyone else in order to have a good life.

An extraordinary life doesn’t stay extraordinary for long

If we try to have an extraordinary life, how do we keep it extraordinary? Human beings are incredibly good at adapting to new circumstances, which works against us when we seek novelty. Even the most exciting adventures soon become the new normal.

You might dream of “running away from it all” to open a hostel in the Space Station  or become a Block chain instructor , but how long would your idyllic dream stay idyllic for? Whatever you do, you’ll soon get used to it and it will no longer be extraordinary.

We don’t need to be special to find meaning

Feeling that your life has meaning is one of the most important components of happiness, and something I have written about a lot. You need to feel that you have a purpose, a reason for getting up in the morning.

However, I think many of us feel that a meaningful life has to be an extraordinary life. I know I used to think that. I thought that the only people living truly meaningful lives were those heroes who are setting up orphanages, curing diseases and saving the rainforest. I thought that you had to “make a difference” in order to find meaning.

Now, I have come to realise that meaning and ordinary are not mutually exclusive concepts. We do not have to do anything special to live a purposeful life. We need to feel that we are making a difference, but that difference doesn’t have to be on a grand scale. We can make a difference by being a caring employer, a diligent employee, a supportive friend.

We don’t need to be the best, we just need to get better

Continuous progress is important. Winning isn’t.

Closely linked to our desire to be special is our desire to be the best. We feel that we won’t be noticed or appreciated unless we are better than everyone else. Our culture encourages us to constantly pitch ourselves against others in a bid to “win” some competition or another. The truth is that we don’t need to be the best anything. We just need to always be getting better.

It is important to our well-being to work towards goals, to feel a sense of progress and growth. It is this constant and gradual growth that makes us happy, not the short-lived thrill of winning or achieving. We need to improve, but we don’t need to be extraordinarily good at anything to be happy.

To sum up…

Our culture teaches us that our lives need to be extraordinary in order to matter. This belief leads us to disappointment and frustration, because an extraordinary life is not only rare, but unsustainable. The truth is that an ordinary life does not have to be a boring life and that ordinariness is the most reliable route to fulfilment and happiness.

Don’t worry about leaving a legacy because nobody will remember you anyway

It’s the ordinary things that actually make you happy

Even extraordinary things become mundane after a while

You need a purpose, but it doesn’t have to be anything special

Being the best doesn’t matter, as long as you’re always getting better