Everybody has an ego. I guess that is one of the things that make us humans. The internet defines ego as ‘a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance’. Who does not have an ego? Everyone believes they deserve respect and recognition from others. Probably humans that do not have egos are children, and the very little ones in fact. One should definitely have some amount of ego because it shows that they respect themselves. And only those who respect themselves can expect to be respected by others, and are actually respected by others. People do not generally respect people who reflect low self-esteem or low self-respect. And it’s only when people respect you that you make yourself heard, protect your rights and live peacefully with others.
But sometimes, our egos get in the way of our efforts at living peacefully with others. Our egos are just so much that letting go of a fight or a grudge becomes as difficult as letting go of the only rope that is keeping us from falling in a deep, dark and shallow hole. Keeping the fight and the grudge is the only thing our mind tells us to do in order to keep our heads high, keep our respect in the eyes of others. Because if we let go of the fight, if we decide to loose, we believe we will no longer be respected by others and will lose our self-esteem. Although we try to give the picture of a winner and the tough by keeping the fight, deep down inside, the fight that we are trying to sustain is eating us up. Peace of mind and happiness are not with us. But who would show that to others, right? That would be to admit failure! So, we keep bragging about our wins, plastering winning faces to hide our inner war that is way far from being won!
What we fail to understand in my opinion is that loosing can be a way of winning. Nothing good can come out from fighting. In fact, nobody wins from fighting. What we fail to understand is that by sustaining a fight and grudges, we are keeping ourselves in the unending trap of a vicious cycle of more fights, grudges, and more damages. As we fight, the others fight back, and we fight back, and so on, damaging a lot of things along the way. And at some point, after the loss becomes too much to bear, we may finally decide that it was all not worth it, and that it would be best to reconcile. Wouldn’t it have been wiser to make this realization before much was lost? By the way, what I have come to understand is that a fight seems the only strategy to win when it first begins. At the beginning, a fight is always justifiable. One is not short of justifications for their fight when the fight starts. At the early stages of a fight, very few are wise enough to think ahead about the long-term consequences of starting and sustaining the fight. Many start it with enthusiasm and energy and at some point find themselves trapped with no way to go back, admit failure, and give chance for the peaceful way of solving the issue that first ignited the fight. Egos get in the way!
I believe that there is no human being that can resist love. It takes time and a lot of patience to win someone with love. It takes letting go of your egos to win someone with love. It takes to “lose” to win with love. The difference between winning by fighting and winning by loving is that the latter takes time to take effect but is long lasting, while the former takes short time to take effect but is very short lasting. Everyone has been at war with someone, or is still at war with someone. Those of us who are still at war with others, we have probably already decided that keeping the war is the only strategy out there. What we should be fighting are not in fact the others but our own egos. Let us fight our egos, and try the strategy of winning by losing and loving! We will not know how this strategy can make wonders, if we do not muster our energies to fight our egos and try it!
