The Lies of Ego

Today I've been thinking about a quote from Carl Jung: "The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it." And as I pondered the meaning of this, another quote entered my mind, from the movie "Supergirl" that I just saw with my family last weekend - there is a moment where Kara's father says to her: "You are our souls unfolding into the future." And so I've been thinking about how fatherhood helps me to release my Ego. And as someone who is naturally pretty introverted, I've also been thinking about how Ego prevents a person like me from living life to the fullest sometimes, as I hold things inside myself without showing them to others out of fear of rejection. And all of these thoughts are the ground from which this poem grew:

 

 

The Lies of Ego

We spend so much of our lives building a lie called Ego

Ego is a story we tell about who we are

"I did this", we say, and we show off the trophies of our youth

But when our bodies can no longer move 

As they did in our youth 

We still are

And Ego lies when it says we've lost any beauty

We are so much more than the ways we moved in our youth

 

Ego says we are what we believe

As if changing our minds meant killing our selves

And in a strange way that's true

But the lie is revealed

When we kill our old self and yet still live

When the true "I" resurrects after every painful admission

Every time we admitted we were wrong and kept living

It reveals that we are so much more than these prisons 

The walls we build for our selves

 

Do not let them confine you

In the prisons of their beliefs

You are so much more

 

You are lightning

A flash in the night that startles all who behold

A resounding boom

Don't let them tell you to use your indoor voice

Let it echo its insistence

 

Don't listen to the lie

You are wild

Untamed

Let your voice roar

Don't mew "thank you"

When they leave you water in the cage they made

 

You are like the weeds
That grow out of the tiny cracks in my porch

Insisting on life in the harshest of conditions
Don't let them tell you to stop growing
Make every crack bigger
Tear apart the concrete they build

 

They tell us the concrete cathedrals are holy

But concrete is not what is holy

Holy is the insistent growth

It is the part in each of us that just won't stop

Holy is the laughter that bursts out even on our darkest days

That stubborn joy that just won't die

 

Holiness is the tired mother

She says "I can't go on like this"

But then her child runs into the room

Crashes into her open arms 

Smiles and says "Mommy!"

And then she goes on anyways

 

The lie Ego tells us is not that the things we did weren't important

Every mother and father knows this

They know how important that T-Ball home run was

Or how beautiful the music of Hot Cross Buns was at that first recital

They treasure the memory of that Kindergarten graduation

Each of those moments are holy to them

 

But the lie is that the story ever ends

Or that it wasn't important because someone else did "more"

The lie the mother tells herself is that her story ended with her youth

Even though she knows her child's refrigerator art is a sacred act of beauty

The lie the father tells himself is that he needs that promotion to matter

Even though his child knows her father's hugs are a holy sacrament

 

The lie Ego tells us is that it is only holy

When we speak the words men wrote two thousand years ago

Even though we know our little boy's first terrible knock-knock joke

Is truly the funniest thing we've ever heard

We tell everyone about it

But are afraid to call it holy

Or to share the beauty inside our own souls

 

The lie Ego tells us is that it is only holy

When we sing a hymn a man wrote about being washed in blood

Even though we know that the child singing The Dandelion Song

Is truly the most beautiful song we've ever heard

And it was sung to a "weed"

But we are afraid to call this sacred

Or to sing our own songs to the "mundane"

 

The lie Ego tells us is that we are only beautiful

When our hair and makeup are perfect

And yet our favorite Facebook memory is that picture

When our child did their hair themselves

With extra ponytails sticking out all over

Or the time they discovered that shampoo can be used to make spikes

Or the time they used every barrette they had

"Beautiful!" we gasped in awe when they showed us

And we meant it

And then we spent hours trying to flatten every raised hair on our own heads

 

We spend so much time trying to create a perfection

A lie we can tell everyone so they will think we are "beautiful"

But we know that beauty encompasses so much more

We know the beauty of our dirty dog

We laugh when we see him rolling in the grass with his limbs akimbo

And then we're afraid to let anyone see us when we are "dirty"

 

If ever anyone tried to tell us our child was not perfect

We would know the lie right away

If ever anyone tried to tell us our dog's sloppy kisses were not beautiful

We would know the lie right away

But Ego tells us not to tell our own story

Ego tells us to stay quiet because our song warbles

Ego tells us our voice doesn't matter because we are "ordinary"

Even though we would rage if anyone ever said this to our child

 

So learn this practice

Break that cage called Ego
And let your voice roar
Strike fear into the hearts of the cage-makers

Kill your Ego every day

And find the meaning of resurrection