How You Can be Contented: Ego has a lot to Do with It

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Only the ego is discontented. Count on that. If not for the ego or self-importance or self centeredness, we'd all be living happily ever after, utterly contented with our lot in life.

But the ego makes us go after what we deem is the best. We won't settle for "good" because we think that most people settle for that. We think that the daring few go after the best. If you hit your "best" you're best of the best! And only a few are like that.

I doubt.

I think the the majority today are all after the best and only a few good men settle for what is good. Only few are happily contented with what God gives them. It's like the narrow road---everyone takes the broad path to perdition thinking it's the best option and only the tough and daring take it.

It's actually the reverse. If you take the narrow road, you are tough and daring. And the narrow road is living a contented simple life as Jesus did.

But the ego is there. I don't think anyone can get rid of it. Like the flesh, the ego serves a purpose. It tells you how to keep satisfied and meek. It teaches you to control and mature. You'd become a robot without your ego. Ego is the breeding ground of self will.

What you do is suppress it. If you don't feed it, it starves and weakens and "dies." But mind you, it can resurrect anytime it tastes even a drop of self importance, like Dracula to a drop of blood. If it dies it just lies around there, waiting for your wrong decision. When your feelings are hurt and you decide to assert your ego, the ego revives.

You can right a wrong done to you without asserting your ego. I train myself to deal with right and wrong without getting emotionally involved. Can you do that? It needs hard training. If someone wrongs you, you see it and demand some remedy. But if you don't get the remedy, you leave it at that unaffected. I term it being cold-blooded or callous with your emotions, especially if they prod you to assert your ego. Unperturbed. Unfazed. Unfeeling.

You see how cold-blooded hired killers deal with their targets? They say they're just doing their jobs. Nothing personal. In the same way, you "assassinate" your emotions. You take nothing personal. Yeah, you may even fight for your life if threatened, but you do it without emotion---no hate no vengeance. Nothing personal---you just needed to save your life.

Well, that's taking it to its extreme, which I hope wouldn't happen.

You have dreams and ambitions. You also desire things. You do your best to get them. But if you don't, it doesn't bother you. You're cold-blooded in that sense. You don't feel frustrated or anything like that. You just settle on the fact that it's not for you. No big deal. So what?

But you feel the ego is still there. Anytime you lose control, it will grab power and do a coup. I still get ousted from power now and then. But the frequency and intensity lessens with training. Of course, I still cry or laugh or feel sad, but it's no longer ego-based. It's like how Jesus wept for Jerusalem, not because his ego was hurt, but because he was concerned for its people.

When the ego is hurt, it aims to do a better job because it needs to prove something. "I'll show them that I'm not a loser and I'm going to outdo them all!" Merely having that thought---proving yourself to people---already makes you a failure. It proves you are their slave because everything you do is aimed at pleasing them.

I'd do better after failing---not to prove anything---but because I just love doing better. The emotion is there, loving to do better, but it's no longer ego-based. Even if you fail trying to be better, you remain satisfied and happy. Loving to do better that is ego-based will never end up fulfilled or happy. The ego never gets contented and people around you get negatively affected by it.

Yes, you may get to be a big success. But you're a rotten, pathetic success.

That's why satisfaction often comes in old age when you are in your death bed and very weak, just waiting for your time. The ego is then subdued. That's why power is made perfect in weakness. When you're about to die you think of nothing else but what truly matters in your life and loved ones. You don't aim for anything anymore---except aim to do things you're still able to do for yourself.

I just pity those who are in their death beds and still do not find contentment. When the ego is still alive at such times, you just suffer more. The pain merely aggravates and not even pain-killers would help. You can't let go of things. You struggle, and that only increases the misery.

The ego can also be generous, but it is so only to prove its worth. And often, the generosity awaits a return. The ego cannot just do good deeds silently. It will want something in return---though it will always deny the fact.

But contented people, with their egos subdued, will give away and forget about it. They don't mind losing material things because to them it's a gain. They don't count the cost. Anyway, if they can't afford to give, they won't. They never want to please anyone anyway, so there's no need to force themselves to sacrifice.