Ego, Arrogance, and Self-Esteem

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

We sometimes lose our direction and become distressed about ourcircumstances. Our body goes through the stages of stress, includingpanic, defiance, and fatigue. When we encounter too much stress, webecome exhausted and in a last ditch effort, we replace true meaningwith an imitation meaning, and make this the primary focus of life. Wethen lose our self-esteem and direction under layers of defensemechanisms, 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 purposein your world. Ego is cleverness to hide ignorance and obscures clarity.Ego provides you with the mechanism to affect everyone around younegatively to bring them down so that you can feel better aboutyourself.

Arrogance occurs when you hold on to useless and malfunctioning ways ofliving life, but you're unsure of its stability. Arrogance is thestubborn conviction that, against all odds, you will push forward down apath that is obviously wrong for you and everyone around you. It is asituation that develops when you begin to lose faith in your own beliefsand 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 ofthose things that no longer work, take pride in yourself, and make arealistic plan to better your life and yourself. It is not a feeling ofpower over others, but it is an acceptance of others and a feeling ofpower over your own life.