Pride, Arrogance, Ego, EQ, Humility

Marie informed me during one life group discussion that her boss said that the word ‘ego’ stood for Edging God Out. I responded that I had devised a formula including my initials and the word ‘ego’ that was a play on Einstein’s E=MC2, using my initials, that read Ego>EQ/IQ≠M2C. This is read as “if your ego is larger than the relationship of your emotional intelligence to your intellect, I am unable to work with you’. And so I am unemployed….and that tells me exactly whose ego is larger? Maybe I should read it to mean that, if my ego is allowed to be greater than the relationship between my emotional intelligence and intellect, I should not work, because then I could be a burden on society at work, since my motivation in working is selfishness and personal gratification, or my need to be in control of things (my OCD).

Emotional Intelligence (EI/EQ) is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges, and diffuse conflict. EI impacts many different aspects of your daily life, such as the way you behave and the way you interact with others (Google search dictionary definition).

If you have a high EI you are able to recognize your own emotional state and the emotional states of others and engage with people in a way that draws them to you. Those who have it don’t have to say it.

We should focus on humility and self-control in particular, as a means to helping us with more patience and tolerance, especially since life is so much simpler if we became less opinionated, as that results in the lesser contentiousness nature of humility people often lack.

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I have had some fun contemplating the correct title for a written work covering the delusions our ego and pride, and a material existence, feed us. There was ‘Taking Stock’ to reflect the material pursuits of life (stock options/incentives/bonuses) that can lead to a lack of ultimate contentment. ‘Reality Check’ had a momentary flash in my considerations. ‘Peeling the Layers of the Onion of Life’ and ‘Awakened, then Transformed over Time’ both briefly prevailed, but then were binned.

I also contemplated a title that reflected the dichotomy or duality of life (such as “The Devil in Sheep’s Clothing”) and/or the fact that we may well have split personalities, dual personas, alter egos or schizophrenia of sorts that we simply are not aware of, albeit primarily because Satan is the great deceiver and clouds our clear view of life and our perspective of reality such that we become deluded, misguided and creating a false narrative instead of realising and embracing how we should actually live and behave.

There was also ‘I’ve Got This!?’, because of the deluded confidence that stems from arrogance and being dominated by pride and ego.

Prideful and egotistical attitudes and behaviors almost invariably result in incomplete or biased views and perspectives that are generally not in the best interests of all involved (including self), and that God works within us to break these attitudes and behaviours down in His time to make us the better versions of ourselves that He created us to be.

Most people find themselves staring at a grave or contemplating life at the funeral of a loved one; how they wished they had treated the person better or reconciled with them or spent more time with them, rather than regretting that they had not accumulated more wealth. The true measure of what is actually important, what we were made for, is in the quality of our relationships, both horizontally and vertically.

The pursuit of happiness in circumstances, status, standing or other material things is fundamentally flawed as these things satisfy only fleetingly. We need to realise that we must not seek our identity in our work scenario or position, as that will inform our perception of happiness. The word ‘Happy’ is only used about 26 times in the Bible, whereas the word ‘Joy’ used over 160 times. We are to seek our Joy in the Lord, who is the source of all we need for eternity.

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Using the ‘royal’ We in the workplace is mostly ineffective. I hear it to mean ‘Me’, which is ‘You’, so it is actually quite upside down from what you intended, i.e. I expect you to do what you thought you were suggesting I do because you were either attempting to direct or dictate, or you didn’t really want to do it yourself. Bollocks!

Also, repeating something verbatim more than once does not make it gospel or unilaterally accepted. Get over yourself! Or at least learn how to properly facilitate buy-in or earn respect (respect is earned, not forced or bought). Rather try LERI (Listen Empathetically until you can Relate to the person, and thus Influence them).

I feel I constantly need to analyse if I am triggering any negative feelings or emotions of potential annoyance, embarrassment, frustration, anger, belittlement or demoralization whenever I communicate in writing, because things can be misconstrued by some, or others read between the lines, or deem the tone or context to be offensive….or whatever! I have to watch what I say or do, what I don’t say or do, how I say things and how I don’t say things, as well as how I act or behave or don’t act or behave, never mind my tone or the context! It’s exhausting! All I want is the other person to feel valued, supported, loved, considered and empowered, but I shouldn’t have to be their crutch or wheelchair, not so?

Often people are not as bright as I have pretended towards them (or made them think I intend) because I love them, but they can be equally not as dull as they think I see them or mean. They may well be incredibly congruent and annoyingly so, but that keeps me in touch with reality and prevents me from being too selfish, opinionated and annoyingly arrogant.

I may assert myself, but not to another’s detriment, especially emotionally, and that creates a dilemma or conflict as I only wish to make my point, but others take it as an affront and then, if I say to not be overly sensitive or personalise it, I am inadvertently and automatically by inference from another’s perspective being insensitive! I am not inherently evil or inconsiderate, so please stop making ultimatums or threats.

The modern world is full of substitute words to describe and ‘soften’ things, like calling work tasks and deliverables and teamwork as sprints, stories and scrums. Why have we become afraid to ‘call a spade a spade’? Are we avoiding the correct levels of accountability and responsibility in the process?

It is quite sad to note that communication has been changed to such an extent since the invention of cellular telephones and tablets, that have evolved into mini-computers that are also excellent cameras. People rather instant message each other than actually talk face to face. How can you really tell what someone is meaning or feeling if you cannot actually see their expressions or read their body language. Emojis and acronyms or abbreviated language are a rather poor (and often misinterpreted or misused) substitute. And what are they doing to people’s spelling and grammar?!

Selfies have become the order of the day as a means to show the world on social media how supposedly well-travelled or exciting or happy your life is, while you are actually alone and self-serving?

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Someone showed me that I needed to stop focusing on how poor certain people are at communicating or leadership, consultation and collaboration because of their various agendas and lack of addressing the real issues (often their apparent/feigned ignorance is actually not bliss for anyone), and that I should rather properly forgive those people in order to really move on.

We must be mindful to not simply kid ourselves in delaying seriously and intentionally dealing with a particular vice that reveals the extent of our (lack of) obedience to God’s instruction on how we should be living. I did this by convincing myself that God was addressing my weaknesses and areas of sin one by one in bite size chunks as He in His wisdom felt that I was ready to address each one, and that He would get to the others in due course. Although there is some truth in this in that we should not be our own worst critic or judge, and we are unable to address everything at once (even though God can), we need to acknowledge that this is simply revealing how we are not fully surrendering all aspects of our lives to God’s actual sovereignty over our life, and that we are being self-indulgent to our detriment and also detracting from fully experiencing wholesome relationships. The Holy Spirit will help us to be more intentional and become enabled to break the habit (illness/disease/addiction) and craving and hold any vice has had over us for many years.

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God rarely communicates loudly and clearly with us, i.e. He does not shout to us “This is what you must do now, and this is how you should do it!” We mustn’t abdicate our responsibility to surrender to and trust in God for His wisdom, guidance and provision but still to take action as God will either prompt us beforehand or guide us into correction if we make some incorrect choices, and assist us in minimizing or managing the suffering resulting from bad choices.

We should look to be good and faithful stewards of the talents, skills, abilities and gifting God has blessed us with, and use them both for constructive work and for good works for the benefit of all around us. Walking in step/alignment with the Holy Spirit results in the fruits of the Spirit growing in us to make life much more enjoyable and fruitful/satisfying.

We should always act out of love, as this is at the heart of God’s greatest commandments to us, and in the end, it is all that lasts into eternity.

Per a renowned evangelist, we start serving others out of love, then we get to know them and discover we don’t even like them, but if we persevere and ask God for His guidance and stay in step with Him, we learn to love them despite fully knowing them (their deepest darkest secrets).

Life is a marathon of discovery, not a sprint containing flashes of sustainable or comprehensive insights.