The Rich and Powerful Ego
I want to have many millions of dollars in the bank. I want to be in very good physical shape. I want to have nice clothes and dress very well. I want to be in a relationship with an attractive, interesting partner to share my life with. I want to have really nice cars. I want a beautiful home decorated to my liking. I want have other homes in different places so I can move around. I want to help other people, I want to have a cause to contribute to. I want to travel the world, get to know people, make great friends. I want to help my family out, put them all in good positions in life. I want to be respected by other people for being who I am. I want to work only when I want to. I want to learn a lot of new things. I want to have a lot of fun, I want to live life to the fullest, I want my life to be great. I want to be comfortable and experience a lot of joy and happiness.
The Normal Ego
I want to have a good job, have a good car, have good friends, have money in the bank. I want to have a nice and comfortable place. I want to live in the town I like the most. I want to have a lot of fun, I want to have a good income. I want to have a good social life, I want to have time to do the things I want to do. I want be healthy, happy and comfortable. I want to feel safe and secure. I want to have a partner that I love and loves me back and that we get along and have almost no conflict. I want to feel good about myself and who I am. I want to have a fun, be comfortable and experience a lot of joy and happiness.
The Spiritual Ego
I want to help others, I want to live simply. I want to have a lot of people that love me and listen to me. I want to have a lot of people trust me and understand me. I want to understand other people. I want to live for a greater purpose. I want to serve God. I want to sacrifice myself for others. I want to be able to go to church and/or do my spiritual practices and rituals. I want to live for God. I want to be nice to the planet, to other people and to myself. I want to live up to my spiritual potential and fulfill my mission on earth. I want to feel like my life really matters and that I am really accomplishing things. I want to recycle, be vegetarian, listen to others, be compassionate and kind. I want to be free. I want to know and live for God.
Comments
These are three aspects of the typical human psyche. These are conditioned patterns that we learn when we live in the western hemisphere of the world. These are the typical things our psyches are pursuing. The fact that women like fashion and shoes and men like cars and women and that gay men like fashion and style, etc. are signals of what we culturally value and accept. No matter who you are, if you are from the West, you most likely at some point (not definitely) wanted a convertible car, to visit Hawaii, a pool in your house, to have a great body, to graduate college and have a professional career, desire money to fix your problems, experience a desire to escape to an island, are looking forward to a movie or book that is coming out (usually a sequel to one you have already seen), etc. Many of you want to be famous, known, powerful, stars, etc. Some of you want to be politicians, entrepreneurs, TV personalities, models, actors, dancers, singers, etc.
Some of you just want to have a college degree really badly, to have a good job, etc. All of you think that a great book could be written about the story of your life. Most of you value fun, entertainment and comfort more than you value the cultivation of your own personality and healing and improvement of your ability to relate with the world and others. It's called the American Culture. Fashion, prestige, status, looks, taste and what we call "freedom" are more important than integrity, honesty, dignity, reality and sobriety. Partying and clubbing for many are requirements, social displays of status for most are a must and authenticity is probably something most of us never think about. It's just our culture. It's better to make a friend laugh with a lie than to make him or her cry with a truth. It's better to pretend, than it is to be real. It's better to front, than it is to expose.
Absolutely none of these things are good nor bad. These are just statements of facts of what it is that our society, our culture, our hemisphere prefers to invest its energies in. Every culture has its quirks. The American psyche values above all else, what is known as instant gratification and fun. That is why the incidence of plastic surgery, the success of the entertainment industry, the popularity of fad diets, the demand for liquor and drugs, the addiction to social events, the incidence of credit card debt, the amount of depression, obesity, low self-esteem, addiction, competitiveness and insatiable desires rule our nations. All these, are products of the need of a fix (instant gratification) and the inversion of values (fun before responsibility).
All these factors influence the health of the hemisphere and the health of the planet. Because at large, we humans are a big part of the ecosystem and we have the power to affect and influence our environment greatly, especially since we have so many machines and technologies being powered by our ecosystem. The attitude that the earth is ours and that we do with it what we want is also a typical part of the collective psyche. In fact the three broad ego examples are all based on this principle. Self-centeredness or egocentricity are the core of most of our desires. If we were to switch our notion and values to a place where things would feel more like "I am indebted to the earth" instead of the other way around, the paradigm from which we relate to the planet and each other would shift tremendously and the three above models would look very different. Our concerns, and the center of our beings would be in a state of serving rather than a state of demanding. "What is being asked of me and what is being required of me?" would be the center from which we would operate and not "What do I ask for and what do I require?"
Sure, this would be a different culture by the time the shift has happened. It would be the equivalent of an inversion of the poles of the planet... at least metaphorically speaking.
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