I read this today and just wanted to share it with all of you. It really resonated. I don't think Ego is all bad, I think it's important to have a balanced ego. But this reading really struck a cord, please share if you enjoyed it, too.
Consider the commitments of your ego and your Essence. The ego doesn't want to commit to anything – a place, a relationship, a career – because it believes that something better may be possible. And it's willing to forgo what's present for the possibility of something better that isn't present. Essence, on the other hand, is committed to whatever is. It doesn't commit into the future because all that exists is the present.
This is the essential difference between the ego and Essence: The ego dreams of something better in the midst of whatever is, while Essence simply enjoys and commits attention and love to whatever is. In fact, committing attention to anything that is present results in enjoyment. This is why the ego enjoys so little – it commits attention to what isn't present and to what it doesn't have, and suffers over that, rather than committing attention to whatever is. It loves its fantasies, dreams, and desires more than it loves reality.
To love, we have to fall in love with reality – with what's true right now, not with what might be true in the future or with what we want to be true in the future. Love happens in the now (like everything, really). That's why the ego doesn't know about love – because love is the experience of being in the now, or the present moment. As soon as the ego experiences the now, it runs from it.
Commitment takes a willingness to fall in love with reality – with the real partner who is in front of you – rather than seek something else, either actually or through fantasy. What you commit to is what's here right now. Who knows what will be here next? All you ever really have is what's here right now, so it makes sense to commit to that, in other words, to give your full attention – your love – to that.
Those who have difficulty committing to a relationship often have difficulty committing to other things as well. They have an underlying belief that what's here isn't good enough, and what's somewhere else is better. This is the ego's basic assumption about life: Whatever is happening now isn't it. It is somewhere else, with it meaning ultimate happiness and contentment.
{Kai holding his baby brother, Leo for the first time}
