The biggest problem that humans have are all attached to one thing: the ego. Our egos are what tells us we're better or worse than someone/something, are responsible for us getting offended and/or angry. Basically it's the one thing that messes up our lives the most.

Since I'm going through my transformation, I've decided I'm going to push my ego aside, with the one exception (because it deals with my personal respect and self preservation). If I feel someone is harmful to me, in any way, shape, or form, I will separate myself from them as much as possible. Otherwise everything else is fair game.

But let me get back to what I was saying. The reason I've decided to push my ego aside was because of something that occurred to me this morning. This morning I found that my roommate had left the apartment early. She and I have been friends for over 15 years to the point that we are like family. We even fight like sisters. Anyway, whenever some big event goes down, we usually invite the other to join. When she was gone so early I instantly thought that she was going with her co-workers some place fun like 6 flags or something and didn't bother inviting me because she was in one of her moods lately. Stupid, I know, but that was my ego getting hurt and assuming bs. Anyway, she came home a couple of hours later and then went to her doctors appointment.

Then this evening, she had the ball game on the tv while she was @ the computer. I was having dinner and wanted to watch the game (it was getting interesting), so I sat on the couch. Instantly she put her hand to her face like "WTF are you DOING?!" I wasn't too sure if it was because of me sitting on the couch or the game, but I figured I'd better use this time to practice pushing my ego aside, so I didn't move. At one point I gasped over what had just happened in the game, and again, hand to face, other hand was moving and I knew what was going on. She was annoyed that I was sitting on the couch. She didn't say anything though. But at that point I was finished with dinner so I went to the kitchen to clean up my dishes. She was still pissed though. And I thought to myself "she's using my experiences to get herself pissed off". I know she wants to be able to go back and forth from laying on the couch to watching television whenever she feels like it, and by me sitting on the couch, she wasn't able to do it. She could have said something, but she didn't. And even after I had left the livingroom, she was still upset. And this was all because I sat on the couch.

I can tell you, a small piece of me was hurt and angry by this, but when I saw it for what it was, the anger disappated. How often do we allow ourselves to get hurt by what others do, and it might not even be towards us? Because regardless of what we all were taught in our childhood, the truth is we are the ones that decide what offends us and what doesn't. Nobody forces anything on you, and the truth is you're doing it to yourself. If someone passes you quickly and you accidently spill your coffee on yourself, most people would get pissed off by the person who passed you, however it's you that's allowing yourself to get bothered by this experience. In truth, all actions have no polarity. In other words, nothing has a positive or negative unless we give it to them. Just like there's no better or worse. That was created by humans and dictated by humans (ego), because in truth, nothing in nature is imperfect.

You know the line "one man's trash is another man's treasure"? Same deal.

But getting back to it. Ego is the one thing that causes us pain. It causes us misery and it causes us grief. Please don't confuse ego with appreciation. Appreciation for who you are, what you can do, the life you have, the friends you keep. That's not ego until you start attaching the positive/negative labels to it. When you start feeling good about something like this "I hang out with the popular crowd, therefore I'm cool", guess what? That's ego. You're no longer appreciating the fact that you have good friends, you're giving false value to yourself because of the false social worth of those around you.

All ego does is make you miserable or make you a target. I'd rather get rid of something like that as quickly as possible.

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