WHAT ABOUT OUR EGOS?? December 24, 2023

 WHAT ABOUT OUR EGOS? Someone in a FB group asked if our ego is important? Does it help us? Or would we be better persons without it?

There may be some confusion about the ego, as described by Jung, as a central part of who we are. I offered this response:

I'd say, and I think Jung confirms, your ego is extremely important. Without our ego, what we call our 'me' or 'I', we have no solid identity. Jung says the first half of life is rightly devoted to building  a healthy ego. It is called our 'conscious' ego.   No ego would mean no consciousness, no me.

So what is the negative aspect of our ego? It gets complicated. In building up itself from its first appearance in early childhood the ego begins to assume it is like a little god. This can continue in different degrees throughout life. The ego innocently believes its personal consciousness is the full, right and complete consciousness. It can come to think others and the world should serve it and may feel rejected when they don't.

So that naturally developing self-centeredness becomes an unconscious aspect of the ego. I suspect no one escapes this situation. It is this unconscious (unknowing)aspect of the ego that induces it to over-estimate its, otherwise amazing, existence.

I'd say the ego suspects it needs to submit itself to something higher than itself and, depending on the person, s/he will try to permanently submit itself to a parent, a partner, a hero, a party, a profession, a religious creed or formula. ...on and on. None of this works well because any of these will take over the ego, helping it to not take mature responsibility for itself but casting itself upon some other person, thing or belief system.

Jung suggests that the ego does need to learn to yield itself to that which is worthy to be yielded to. He calls that something the larger Self, an inner experienced spiritual reality whose goal for the ego is 'wholeness' or 'completeness',  not the 'perfection' the culture has told it to be. But becoming this ever developing, unique, flawed and increasingly conscious self Jung suggests is the paramount spiritual goal for each human life.

This yielding of the ego to the higher reality (This is the origin of the Jungian notion of AA's higher power) toward a unique whole or complete person should keep one developing spiritually/psychologically for a whole lifetime. Jung calls the process 'individuation'. Through it one's consciousness(ego) and

unconscious material gradually added to it lets this pair of opposites(and many other pairs of opposite experiences we often painfully learn from) unite to be in increasing harmony.

The above is my effort at a synopsis. Maybe it can be helpful?

Long story short. It is very important to much value your ego always. Never reject it but always question it (That never dawns on some people because their ego is still like an authoritative god-parent.)Become aware of your ego's issues. Remind it, your conscious ego self, that there is still much remaining in its larger unconscious(eg. personal denials and repressions, other persons' different experiences than yours, plus the timeless inner contents of the vast Collective Unconscious-common to every human.) of which your ego is simply not yet aware.

So our ego, no matter how conscious it becomes, must learn to live and behave with a solid level of genuine humility. This seems central to our human condition, like it or not.

As complicated as our human condition is, as described above, it seems that a prideful 'I already know what is true and best' approach to life and others is unwarranted and untruthful. As this is learned we might better resist falling under the unbalancing influence of persons , groups, media or beliefs which show signs of not yet learning well about their own ego.  Imo increases in this kind of personal/social awareness might significantly make the world safer and more compassionate.