The human ego, as one of the three entities [there is also the Eid and the Super-Ego], proposed by Sigmund Freud to understand the dynamics of the human psyche, is a rather important concept not only for psychology, but also for life in general. Thanks to this concept, we can allow ourselves to reflect on who we are, how our idea of ourselves is formed, and how adequate it is to reality. And the result of such thoughts, in turn, will allow us to make extremely reasonable decisions in various life situations, correctly assessing our strengths and capabilities. It is not necessary to read about the Ego in order to understand what it is. Any person who does not even possess sufficiently extensive knowledge in the field of psychology and is not familiar with Freudian theories, can nevertheless feel, and then realize, that he has some kind of special idea about himself, as a person, as someone he can call his “I”. It, this I, is necessary for all of us, because it allows us to contact the outside world through the prism of our personal selfish interests. But at the same time, it gives us a distorted view of ourselves, preventing us from seeing ourselves as we are, and not as we seem to ourselves. In this article, we will discuss our Ego mainly from a practical point of view in order to understand how our Self influences us and how we can influence it, in order to effectively pursue and defend our interests and not have the most common problems associated with the Ego. But at the same time, it gives us a distorted idea of ourselves, preventing us from seeing ourselves as we are, and not as we seem to ourselves. In this article, we will discuss our Ego mainly from a practical point of view, in order to understand how our Self influences us and how we can influence it, in order to effectively pursue and defend our interests and not have the most common problems associated with the Ego. But at the same time, it gives us a distorted idea of ourselves, preventing us from seeing ourselves as we are, and not as we seem to ourselves. In this article, we will discuss our Ego mainly from a practical point of view, in order to understand how our Self influences us and how we can influence it, in order to effectively pursue and defend our interests and not have the most common problems associated with the Ego.
What is the ego
First, briefly briefly define what we are discussing. The ego is the inner self. It allows a person to perceive himself as a person who has his own interests, desires, needs, goals. That is, in fact, it is our personality, or rather, our idea of ourselves as a person. Thanks to the Ego, a person separates himself from others, in terms of his interests, desires, characteristics. The ego is our imaginary essence with you, which does not exist in reality, it is our false self-identification. Here we say: “I” and then we already have a set of ideas about who this I am.
Eid is the unconscious part of the psyche. These are innate, instinctive aspects of a person’s personality. In other words, this is our animal essence.
Супер-Эго – это сущность, отвечающая за моральные и религиозные установки человека, за нормы его поведения и моральные запреты. К функциям Супер-Эго, оно же Сверх-Я относится самонаблюдение, совесть и формирование идеалов человека. Супер-Эго формируется в процессе воспитания и образования. Это некий идеал, который человек хочет в себе видеть, его, так скажем, правильная с позиции общественного мнения личность, благодаря которой он отличает правильные поступки от неправильных.
We are interested in the Ego, therefore, let us dwell on it. Our Ego is a mediator between “It” [our instinctual drives] and “Super-Ego” [censorship]. It gives us an idea of itself here and now. And the Super-Ego is an ideal that we strive for, well, or want to correspond if we already consider ourselves close to the ideal. With it, we keep our Ego within the framework of idealistic standards. Thus, the Ego is an intermediate link between our animal essence and the ideal, perfect personality, in the sense in which we accept it, according to the social principles that we absorbed while living in human society. Thus, the Ego helps us interact with people around us, on the one hand, not to the detriment of our interests, but on the other, taking into account public opinion and orders.
What is the use of the ego
As I said, thanks to the Ego, a person realizes himself as a person who has his own interests, desires, needs and opinions that reflect all these things. The ego allows us to think of ourselves as necessary, so that we are focused on the struggle for our interests. It is thanks to the Ego that we do not consider ourselves worse than others, it is thanks to it that we value our life and are not ready to part with it for someone else, unless this other is so important to us that we are consciously ready to choose it instead of ourselves. But even in this case, the Ego will resist, urging us to think first of ourselves about ourselves. In short, thanks to the Ego, we love ourselves and life.
It is also thanks to him that we make other people love and value us. After all, the Ego distorts our opinion of ourselves, not only for us, but for the people around us, whom we also convince of our value and uniqueness. Rather, it in itself is such a distorted opinion, but before it becomes, the Ego helps us to perceive information about ourselves in a certain way, filtering all the bad and leaving, and multiplying all the good, so that we consider ourselves better than we really are. That is, distortion always goes for the better. And thinking about ourselves very well, we inspire this opinion with other people, forcing them to think better of us too, so that they treat us better. In other words, our Ego helps us embellish our personality for others. We can say that we are gaining our own worth thanks to him. But when our opinion of ourselves worsens, then we have problems in the form of low self-esteem, self-doubt, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Only with a suppressed ego can a person come to the idea of harming himself. And just like that, people whose ego does not fulfill their duties allow others to treat themselves badly.
Thus, the Ego also protects us from human aggression, mainly psychological. When someone tries to suppress us morally, they resist this and do not allow us to believe in a bad opinion of ourselves. Our Ego takes from the outside world mainly such facts that show us in the best possible light. A bad screening out. If someone convinces us that we are bad, stupid, weak, that we are wrong in something, the Ego reflects these attacks, not allowing us to be humiliated in our own eyes. Even a simple reluctance to listen to something bad about oneself is a protective function of the Ego. It is primitive, but in some cases one cannot do without such protection. But if aggressors defeat our Ego, we can stop defending our interests, believing that we do not deserve anything good. We can start to think that they should be punished for their misconduct, sins, so we’ll stop protecting ourselves. We become submissive, compliant, weak-willed if our Ego is defeated. So a person first becomes a slave inside his head, and then outwardly turns into a slave, reconciled with his fate of the victim. So without the Ego, as you see, life could be just awful. And those people whose ego is crushed depend entirely on the opinions of those around them about themselves. Which, as you know, is not at all good, because people are selfish and therefore will use an unprotected person in their interests, telling him only those things about him that are beneficial to them. This is for the benefit of the ego. Now let’s talk about its shortcomings. So a person first becomes a slave inside his head, and then outwardly turns into a slave, reconciled with his fate of the victim. So without the Ego, as you see, life could be just awful. And those people whose ego is crushed depend entirely on the opinions of those around them about themselves. Which, as you know, is not at all good, because people are selfish and therefore will use an unprotected person in their interests, telling him only those things about him that are beneficial to them. This is for the benefit of the ego. Now let’s talk about its shortcomings. So a person first becomes a slave inside his head, and then outwardly turns into a slave, reconciled with his fate of the victim. So without the Ego, as you see, life could be just awful. And those people whose ego is crushed depend entirely on the opinions of those around them about themselves. Which, as you know, is not at all good, because people are selfish and therefore will use an unprotected person in their interests, telling him only those things about him that are beneficial to them. This is for the benefit of the ego. Now let’s talk about its shortcomings. not at all good, because people are selfish and therefore will use an unprotected person in their interests, telling him only those things about him that are beneficial to them. This is for the benefit of the ego. Now let’s talk about its shortcomings. not at all good, because people are selfish and therefore will use an unprotected person in their interests, telling him only those things about him that are beneficial to them. This is for the benefit of the ego. Now let’s talk about its shortcomings.
Ego problems
Problems with the ego are the flip side of its virtues. Nevertheless, we are talking about a distorted conceit, even if it is distorted for the better for man. Anyway, it is not an objective look at oneself that makes it difficult to take useful and adequate decisions; a person is simply blinded by his Ego. He can greatly exaggerate his capabilities, trying to crack a nut that is too tough for him. As a result, the teeth break. From this point of view, our Ego is deceiving us to the detriment of us.
In general, the human ego is often presented by various specialists, thinkers, writers and religion exclusively in a negative light, as a kind of internal enemy that needs to be fought and ultimately must be defeated. And then a person seems to be wise. In such cases, the Ego is associated with pride, vanity, narcissism, greed, and some other vices. But it’s not always the case. I disagree with such a hostile attitude towards the Ego. Of course, the Ego leads to egoism, makes a person insatiable, overly demanding of others, when he unreasonably believes that he deserves more and better, that he always does everything right, and only others make mistakes. All these misconceptions have a place to be. However, this happens in those cases when a person simply does not think about his Self, does not try to understand it. Yes, we can be obstinate because of our Ego in our excessive desires, whims, we can give free rein to our passions, believing that the world revolves around us. But when a person knows that there is a difference between his opinion of himself and what can be considered objectivity, and this is the opinion of other people about him, and his real possibilities, he ceases to completely trust his opinion of himself, without harming his psychological comfort. You just need to understand how your own Self is formed. Thus, the main problem with the Ego is elementary ignorance and not understanding what it is, what is its meaning and how to react to it. This is often encountered by young people who still know very little about life and therefore cannot correctly navigate it. They are focused on themselves, the Ego keeps them captive of their own illusions, and they trust him unconditionally. And only the expansion of their ideas about life, including through their own mistakes, can allow them to begin to more soberly assess their capabilities. So competently fighting your ego means simply thinking about what it tells us through our thoughts about ourselves. You can not unconditionally trust your self, it always needs a critical evaluation.
Another problem associated with the ego is a person’s too careful attitude to himself. With such an attitude, a person imagines himself to be a special person who does not fit to do heavy and dirty things, leave the comfort zone, obey someone, and so on. On the one hand, it’s good when a person takes care of himself, when he reaches for comfort, an easy life that does not require extra efforts from his point of view. But it’s clear that in life everything is not always easy and sometimes you need to have character in order to achieve your goals, which in turn is formed thanks to our will, when we do something through “I don’t want” and even through “I can’t” because we just need, we need. However, the will also depends on the Ego, and if a person convinces himself that he needs some self-sacrifice, that it is beneficial for him, that you need to pat yourself a bit, for the sake of worthy goals, he will do it without stepping over his Ego, because it will support him in this decision. But more often all the same, the Ego forces a person to take care of himself and to avoid various difficulties, therefore it negatively affects the formation of character.
The fanatical concentration of a person on his own opinion is another negative side of his ego. In this case, a person listens only to himself and does not hear anyone else, and does not want to hear. For him, there is only one correct opinion, his. In fact, this is egoism, a primitive feature of our I, calling us to think only about ourselves, even if it harms us. So we adhere to our opinion, not thinking about how true it is. And since what people call their opinion, they are most often borrowed from someone else, usually some thinkers, and not created independently, through long and exhausting thoughts, its goal is to pursue personal interests, nothing more. People do not seek any truth, they do not need any truth, they seek only their own profit. The man says: “My opinion”, but implies: “My desire,” he says: “I think,” but really means, “I want,” although people themselves do not always understand this. They can insist on their opinion not because it is actually theirs and not even because they consider it right, but simply because it is beneficial to them. But they do not recognize this, even for themselves. Only now, in this way in this world it is not always possible to achieve your goals, such obstinacy limits us. So you can make a lot of enemies or stay alone. The ego, of course, will tell the person that he is still right, no matter what results he comes to, it’s them, other people, they’re all wrong, that’s just that it won’t do much. Without the support of people, without cooperation with them, you cannot go far in this life. that it really is theirs and not even because they consider it right, but simply because it is beneficial to them. But they do not recognize this, even for themselves. Only now, in this way in this world it is not always possible to achieve your goals, such obstinacy limits us. So you can make a lot of enemies or stay alone. The ego, of course, will tell the person that he is still right, no matter what results he comes to, it’s them, other people, they’re all wrong, that’s just that it won’t do much. Without the support of people, without cooperation with them, you cannot go far in this life. that it really is theirs and not even because they consider it right, but simply because it is beneficial to them. But they do not recognize this, even for themselves. Only now, in this way in this world it is not always possible to achieve your goals, such obstinacy limits us. So you can make a lot of enemies or stay alone. The ego, of course, will tell the person that he is still right, no matter what results he comes to, it’s them, other people, they’re all wrong, that’s just that it won’t do much. Without the support of people, without cooperation with them, you cannot go far in this life. So you can make a lot of enemies or stay alone. The ego, of course, will tell the person that he is still right, no matter what results he comes to, it’s them, other people, they’re all wrong, that’s just that it won’t do much. Without the support of people, without cooperation with them, you cannot go far in this life. So you can make a lot of enemies or stay alone. The ego, of course, will tell the person that he is still right, no matter what results he comes to, it’s them, other people, they’re all wrong, that’s just that it won’t do much. Without the support of people, without cooperation with them, you cannot go far in this life.
Recognizing only one’s opinion prevents a person from learning from their mistakes, which always have a place in this life. He simply does not recognize them, blaming other people for all his problems. I tell him that he did everything right, made no mistakes [despite the absence of a positive result or the presence of a negative], therefore, nothing needs to be changed, you don’t need to understand yourself, much less criticize and punish yourself. Other people are to blame for everything, whatever the circumstances. Here, the ego protects the human psyche so that it does not get hurt due to failures and awareness of one’s own weakness, I wrote about this above, but at the same time, the person is denied access to reflect on the causes of what happened, including, of course, his own wrong actions. In fact, we can reduce all our problems to our actions, perfect or imperfect. Well, maybe some small part of our failures does not depend on us at all, but in many ways we manage our life, or rather, we can manage it. But our Ego often intervenes in this control not in the best way, forcing us to notice only the bright side of our actions. Negativity is rejected as a signal dangerous to the psyche. Moreover, the more often a person has encountered criticism from other people in his life, the more they are suppressed, the stronger the Ego protects him from any negative, including constructive, in the form of the same justified criticism. If you want a person to constantly step on the same rake, start criticizing him for and without reason, especially in childhood, when the psyche and mind are not yet strong and the person takes everything very seriously, and you get an individual, who is so full of negative that he no longer wants to accept it, even if he needs to do it for his own benefit. The ego of such a person becomes impenetrable, and he becomes stubborn to insanity, never admitting his mistakes, no matter how painful he is because of them. This is how the Ego helps us, solving one problem, it can create others.
And the Ego also prevents a person from truly loving someone. Indeed, in order to love a full-fledged adult love, you need to be prepared to put your loved one and his interests above yourself. Because love requires that a person give, and the Ego and the egoism it causes, on the contrary, calls only to take. Therefore, in a person with a bloated ego, love does not arise. He can only have a love for himself, in which he wants to be with someone who he likes with something. For example, if we are talking about a man, he can love a beautiful woman, not because she is dear to him, but because he wants to possess a beautiful thing, for the sake of his beloved. Such love is short-lived and unreliable. Or a woman can love a man, not because he himself is an interesting person, but because he is, say, rich or famous. This is how she expresses love for herself, she just wants to have something better than most other options in order to feel better than other people. The ego of such people encourages them to take something good, preferably the best, but they don’t even think about giving, doing something for their beloved people, for their sake, and not for their own sake. Because of their exorbitant ego, such people, when they converge with their own kind, often tend to just use each other, they have a prevailing market approach in relations, when it comes to the desire to benefit from a partner, and not about feelings for him and harmony in relations . to do something for loved ones, for their sake, and not for their own sake, they don’t even think. Because of their exorbitant ego, such people, when they converge with their own kind, often tend to just use each other, they have a prevailing market approach in relations, when it comes to the desire to benefit from a partner, and not about feelings for him and harmony in relations . to do something for loved ones, for their sake, and not for their own sake, they don’t even think. Because of their exorbitant ego, such people, when they converge with their own kind, often tend to just use each other, they have a prevailing market approach in relations, when it comes to the desire to benefit from a partner, and not about feelings for him and harmony in relations .
Ego Struggle
Thinking about the Ego as a whole and about my own Self, I came to the conclusion that there should not be any struggle with it. Whatever our opinion of ourselves, no matter how we identify, our Self is not our enemy. It may not be the most intelligent friend and ally, but it is reliable and loyal who is interested in our prosperity. I believe that a person just needs to be able to separate himself from his Ego, as a kind of personality that he does not know well from the personality that he wants to be. And speaking of what a person wants to be, I do not mean the Super-Ego, but simply the Ego, that is, the one whom he considers himself to be. You just need to understand that our opinion of ourselves lives only in ourselves, and outside we are completely different people. This understanding alone will be enough not to be captured by the illusions created by our Ego.
The ego needs not so much pacification as attention to itself. And to defeat him is not at all necessary. It’s my personal opinion. The ego is responsible for our survival primarily on the psychological level. We must not lose ourselves in this world, so as not to become the shadow of someone else, so as not to let anyone push us around. And if a person is depersonalized, then he will just become a puppet, who does not have either his own opinion or the will to live. What can come to the place of I? Only perhaps only We. But do you really want to be part of something, some kind of society, collective, where you, due to your lack of your I, will be easily replaceable? I do not think that this is a decent fate for a person. Therefore, the calls to fight the Ego, in my opinion, are the desire to subordinate the will of man, no matter to whom. As soon as a person loses himself, as soon as he begins to think, that his role in this world is insignificant, he becomes easy prey for a stronger personality. And falling under the influence of others, he loses freedom, and without freedom [albeit relative] full happiness is impossible.
The problems with our I, of course, are not worth denying. We must understand that we don’t know everything about ourselves, that we don’t fully understand ourselves, therefore we can be very mistaken about our capabilities. Turning to each individual person, I want to say: The ego is not you, the ego is what you consider yourself. You need to often reflect, think about yourself, your actions, desires, thoughts, look for the reason why they arise, think about how each of us looks from the outside, think about the opinions of other people about ourselves, and not just brush it off if we do not like it. All this will allow not to depend on the Ego, and therefore not to be a victim of its illusions.
You also need to understand that because of his self, a person can become a victim of other people’s manipulations. The ego is very malleable to external influence if it refers specifically to it. Praise a person and his Ego will swell to an incredible size, and he will lose control of himself, and scold, and the person will go out, lower his hands and lose faith in himself. And although the Ego protects us from criticism, almost everyone can spoil or improve our mood, through the impact on it. In order to prevent this, it is important to be able to listen to different points of view about ourselves, so that it is not that we accept one opinion about ourselves because we like it, and reject the other as uncomfortable, unpleasant, not coinciding with our own opinion about to myself. That is, one must accustom oneself to a calm attitude to any opinions about oneself and to the bad and the good. Because different people have different reasons to say something specific about us, depending on our actions, words, and situations in which we find ourselves. The objectivity here is that the opinion of other people about us is as subjective as our own opinion of ourselves. And only taking into account the many such opinions, you can get some kind of objectivity. But it’s hard to do. To do this, a person must have good psychological health. And if in his past there were many painful moments when he was suppressed and humiliated, then he is no longer interested in objectivity, since his Ego filters the negative too much, thus compensating for the old psychological traumas. So in this case, you need to improve your psychological health. from situations in which we find ourselves. The objectivity here is that the opinion of other people about us is as subjective as our own opinion of ourselves. And only taking into account the many such opinions, you can get some kind of objectivity. But it’s hard to do. To do this, a person must have good psychological health. And if in his past there were many painful moments when he was suppressed and humiliated, then he is no longer interested in objectivity, since his Ego filters the negative too much, thus compensating for the old psychological traumas. So in this case, you need to improve your psychological health. from situations in which we find ourselves. The objectivity here is that the opinion of other people about us is as subjective as our own opinion of ourselves. And only taking into account the many such opinions, you can get some kind of objectivity. But it’s hard to do. To do this, a person must have good psychological health. And if in his past there were many painful moments when he was suppressed and humiliated, then he is no longer interested in objectivity, since his Ego filters the negative too much, thus compensating for the old psychological traumas. So in this case, you need to improve your psychological health. you can get some kind of objectivity. But it’s hard to do. To do this, a person must have good psychological health. And if in his past there were many painful moments when he was suppressed and humiliated, then he is no longer interested in objectivity, since his Ego filters the negative too much, thus compensating for the old psychological traumas. So in this case, you need to improve your psychological health. you can get some kind of objectivity. But it’s hard to do. To do this, a person must have good psychological health. And if in his past there were many painful moments when he was suppressed and humiliated, then he is no longer interested in objectivity, since his Ego filters the negative too much, thus compensating for the old psychological traumas. So in this case, you need to improve your psychological health.
In life, in general, much affects the size of our ego. Success in some matters, public recognition, big money, great opportunities and power – all this allows a person to think of himself not just as good, but as a great, outstanding person. Some people begin to imagine themselves to be gods, believing that in many ways they are much superior to other people. Here they have an ego of truly cosmic proportions. On the one hand, this allows them to act boldly, confidently, assertively, aggressively, which, with more or less competent calculation, allows them to achieve new and very large victories. The sense of superiority over others relieves them of restraining fear, because of which people show indecision. But, on the other hand, such a bloated Ego can lead such people to disaster when they try to accomplish the impossible, when they overestimate their strength. They lose their vigilance, act inadvertently, unjustifiably take risks, and start unconditionally believing those who flatter them, because they themselves believe in the same thing and because of all this they can make catastrophic mistakes. Here, descent from heaven to earth is already required. People rarely do this with their own minds, I can’t even recall now such examples when a person took it and came to his senses like that, without any external incentives. Basically, we have to talk about falling from heaven to earth, because of some shocks, when life punishes a person for his recklessness. I can’t even recall now such examples when a person took and came to his senses like this, without any external incentives. Basically, we have to talk about falling from heaven to earth, because of some shocks, when life punishes a person for his recklessness. I can’t even recall now such examples when a person took and came to his senses like this, without any external incentives. Basically, we have to talk about falling from heaven to earth, because of some shocks, when life punishes a person for his recklessness.
Examples of exorbitantly hyped ego can often be seen in politics. People, especially those who have been in power for a long time and for a number of reasons are not afraid of losing it, become so far from reality that they take completely rash decisions that lead to extremely negative consequences, both for the whole society and for themselves. And what is especially scary – not always people who have made such mistakes want to acknowledge them, and therefore correct them. The same thing happens with the bosses of tyrants, because of the distorted conceit of which a large number of people suffer. So if a person does not think about his Ego, about what it is, how it affects him, then the laws of life will lead him to results that are inevitable for him.
The ego is a very subtle thing, as, indeed, is the whole human psyche. So many things can affect him, starting with external factors and ending with his own thoughts of a person about himself. This means that his role in our life is very important. Refusing him through the struggle with him is like depriving ourselves of some internal organs, believing that we do not need them. And in this case, our I could be compared with a rather important organ, and not with any appendicitis. Therefore, the struggle with the Ego, in my opinion, I emphasize, is not needed. But you need to think about it so as not to forget about its existence and impact on us. And if possible, you need to analyze your Self, to study its components in order to understand what things have forced us to form an opinion about ourselves, what it is at the moment. When you find out, then understanding
