Rambling Reflections: Affront on Arrogance
Rosie vs Ego: Rosie 1, Ego XP
I've been pondering life and existence a lot, as usual. The catalyst to this new round of reflection was that my friend pointed out that my temper had been getting more fiery and short-circuited than before. I took that thought home to sleep on and realized that I had unknowingly fostered a very strong and stubborn arrogance within myself.
The seed of arrogance was planted when I became aware of the fact that I was a bit smarter than quite a number of the people around me. As time went on, my ability to read and deal with situations accurately and effectively fed my ever-growing ego. I became cocky and self-assured, which further inflated my arrogance. It became more difficult to admit when I was wrong and my tolerance for things that went differently from what I wanted dwindled to nearly nothingness, so naturally my temper flared up…
As I dug further into my soul, I tried to be brutally honest with myself, really peel back all the facades of “perfection” I strived endlessly to maintain, and point my sword in the face of the core issue. As I galloped along gallantly and struck down wall after wall of my well-enforced ego, I found myself face to face with these simple questions: how could the great me ever be wrong? How dare people go against my word? How dare they have different opinions? How dare the universe throw a wrench in my plans?
As these thoughts quickly led down a self-destructive spiral of jealousy and resentment, I finally felt like I had hit the crux of the problem. I was not thinking consciously and rationally, but rather cruising along with my ego in the driver’s seat while my rational mind fell into a comatose-auto-pilot mode. I had allowed myself to become intoxicated on my own perceived “judgement,” but in reality all I was doing was letting my arrogance and ego take over my life.
Logically speaking: nobody’s perfect. We’re all lacking in some way(s) or another, we’re only human after all. In that case, how could I be the only one who was always right? Why shouldn’t other people have their own thoughts/opinions/ways of doing things? Why should the universe revolve around me?
Taking a step back really helped to put things into perspective. I felt more at peace when I realized that all these suffocating frustrations were brought about by my own arrogance and ego. I realized my short temper was due to often falling into anxiety when I felt like I was losing control…but control over what?
Upon further introspection, I found that it was a fear of losing control of my own self-perceived image in other people’s eyes, such impudent arrogance!
The human mind is not something to be controlled, other people are not just chess pieces that ought to move by my will. Each individual is a unique being with his/her own distinct history and personality, who am I to try to force them into behaving as I want?
To take ten thousand steps back (退一萬步講 tui4 yi1 wan4 bu4 jiang3）: if I really had the power to control people’s minds to abide by my will, would that actually be what I truly desired? Just the thought of it seems so incredibly scary: an endless puppet performance produced, directed, acted, and edited by one person trapped in the echo-chamber of her own mind, how utterly futile and pointless life would become!
It was liberating to work through all of this mental mumbo-jumbo and come out on top. I felt like I had emerged victorious from a hard-won battle against a sneaky enemy that had tried to camouflage into my allied forces encampment.
It has been a minute since I last picked up my “pen” to record something of value so apologies if the read-through was rocky. However this “journal entry” reminds me once again of the immense joy that writing brings, the ability to time-capsule thoughts while they’re fresh, to reflect deeply and see one’s thought process in 4K, to temper my own character by pushing through laziness with discipline, and as all things in life that are worthwhile, one must put in the effort to reap the rewards.
There are various other topics that I would like to update you all on, but they don’t really align with this topic, so I will write again soon!
