How to tame the Ego?

[superlativecritic]

Check this thread out about ego:
How to Control my EGO


Although it's more of an Eastern philosophical view of "Ego", nevertheless there are some truths about how the ego acts. To summarize, the ego acts to preserve itself. If the Ego perceives one to be intelligent, the ego will react if someone calls you stupid.

I wanted to look up a Biblical perspective of this, but I find them insufficient. The Bible's teachings are around humility and putting God above you, and honoring others; but it presents ego in relation to one's relationship with God (ie. we should not think we are better than God). However there's not so much about the ego in relation to self-perception: we are told not to think we are better than others, but ego is something else. Ego is a self-perception that serves to protect itself. We can think we are no better than others but we still get insulted when someone challenges our self-belief - that tells me we have not adequately dealt with the root of the problem.

I've never heard a sermon that centered around dealing with insults. I find that Christians readily react to insults. The only thing people will preach about insults is to "turn the other cheek". If you read the thread above, doing that is equivalent to "beating one's ego into submission". Someone in that thread proposed to let the ego exhaust itself instead. That seems to me to be a better solution, but I can't think of the Bible equivalent of that.

The fact of the matter is, I am more intelligent than most. No matter how much I pretend or practice false humility, a fact is a fact. Therefore it would not serve me to beat my ego into submission and think suddenly everyone else is smarter than me. I can certainly act in a way that I do not brag/boast about it, and I can certainly act like I can learn from everyone, and I can certainly know that there are many who are smarter than me. But I do still get insulted when a less intelligent person for example challenges my math calculation. I will act smugly when I prove their insufficient mental arithmetic because they tried to insult me.

So the verse about "honoring others above me" won't serve in this specific situation. The uneducated lady who tried to correct my math simply was leagues below my math knowledge level, and I cannot pretend that her math ability is "above me". Therefore I would rather find a verse that talked about letting my ego exhaust itself, so that even if someone insulted my intellect, it wouldn't even bother me in the first place.

I realize that the "honor others above yourself" is more general, that the Bible teaches me to simply honor that lady and keep my smugness to myself - but that doesn't change what's going on in my head. My ego still feels insulted, and I don't like it. There's doing (which the verse promotes), and then there's thinking.

It's easy to believe that God is better than me, but I know for a fact that other people are not better than me at some things. Is there a verse that will help me "exhaust my ego" when it comes to these things? It's not easy, because heck even Elijah couldn't handle his ego when he set those bears against the youths.

What do you think?

 

[Jpark]

The only thing I can think of is not doing anything.

The ego is mainly fed by knowledge. You have to cut off it's food source.

 

[Ortho_Cat]

A few things: Find a spiritual guide/mentor. Love others with the love of Christ and concern yourself with their needs.

 

[myfatherabove]

The ego is part of who we are, are natural impulses and needs. I don't think one can 100% eradicate a natural part of himself. I would agree that you can strengthen control over urges, and temptation but we are all human and we will all sin, no matter what we do. God is a gracious and understanding God and does not condemn us for what we can not control, but praises us for our efforts to control it and through his touch maybe we can control ourselves.

 

[superlativecritic]

The ego is part of who we are, are natural impulses and needs. I don't think one can 100% eradicate a natural part of himself.

Maybe the key to taming it to understand what God's purpose for it is.

There's a reason for every emotion and inclination we have, but it is seldom discussed what is the good purpose of pride/ego. People just say it's "bad" and try to suppress it. A better approach may be to understand its purpose and use the emotion the right way.

For example, a healthy pride/ego motivates you to continue doing the right thing, even when everyone else is trying to pull you down. As one becomes more "powerful" and influential in the world, one needs a bigger pride/ego to remain in that position of influence - influential people are often attacked, and must also maintain a strong pride to maintain their respect and influence.

So maybe the Godly way to handle pride/ego is to understand that it was given as a gift to protect oneself from emotional attack, but should not be used to put others down or to elevate oneself?

 

[Dragnog]

Check this thread out about ego:

Although it's more of an Eastern philosophical view of "Ego", nevertheless there are some truths about how the ego acts. To summarize, the ego acts to preserve itself. If the Ego perceives one to be intelligent, the ego will react if someone calls you stupid.

I wanted to look up a Biblical perspective of this, but I find them insufficient. The Bible's teachings are around humility and putting God above you, and honoring others; but it presents ego in relation to one's relationship with God (ie. we should not think we are better than God). However there's not so much about the ego in relation to self-perception: we are told not to think we are better than others, but ego is something else. Ego is a self-perception that serves to protect itself. We can think we are no better than others but we still get insulted when someone challenges our self-belief - that tells me we have not adequately dealt with the root of the problem.

I've never heard a sermon that centered around dealing with insults. I find that Christians readily react to insults. The only thing people will preach about insults is to "turn the other cheek". If you read the thread above, doing that is equivalent to "beating one's ego into submission". Someone in that thread proposed to let the ego exhaust itself instead. That seems to me to be a better solution, but I can't think of the Bible equivalent of that.

The fact of the matter is, I am more intelligent than most. No matter how much I pretend or practice false humility, a fact is a fact. Therefore it would not serve me to beat my ego into submission and think suddenly everyone else is smarter than me. I can certainly act in a way that I do not brag/boast about it, and I can certainly act like I can learn from everyone, and I can certainly know that there are many who are smarter than me. But I do still get insulted when a less intelligent person for example challenges my math calculation. I will act smugly when I prove their insufficient mental arithmetic because they tried to insult me.

So the verse about "honoring others above me" won't serve in this specific situation. The uneducated lady who tried to correct my math simply was leagues below my math knowledge level, and I cannot pretend that her math ability is "above me". Therefore I would rather find a verse that talked about letting my ego exhaust itself, so that even if someone insulted my intellect, it wouldn't even bother me in the first place.

I realize that the "honor others above yourself" is more general, that the Bible teaches me to simply honor that lady and keep my smugness to myself - but that doesn't change what's going on in my head. My ego still feels insulted, and I don't like it. There's doing (which the verse promotes), and then there's thinking.

It's easy to believe that God is better than me, but I know for a fact that other people are not better than me at some things. Is there a verse that will help me "exhaust my ego" when it comes to these things? It's not easy, because heck even Elijah couldn't handle his ego when he set those bears against the youths.

What do you think?

Do you consider yourself better than others because you are more intelligent than them? I have had serious trouble with this and God keeps shaving pieces off my ego every day. There will always someone who is better than you. Read the whole of Ecclesiastes to understand the futility of man's wisdom. I personally think ego is on of the things that keeps us from God, if it is the thing that helps us rely on ourselves then we should be getting rid of it. In the end we reach the end of ourselves and it is at that moment that we can truly start living...