"Ego"
I believe every human being has an ego, myself included. And maybe, the more I try to understand people, the more I realize that ego is not something we can truly erase. We can only learn to recognize it, control it, and understand when it is protecting us and when it is actually limiting us.
Actually, having an ego is normal, right? Ego has a function. One of them is to protect our self-respect and our boundaries. Because of ego, we can say no to things that go against our principles. We can refuse to be treated unfairly, stand by our opinions when we are sure about something, protect our privacy, or choose not to do something just because of pressure from other people. Without ego to a certain degree, maybe humans would be too easily controlled by their environment.
So, in my opinion, the problem isn’t about having an ego or not having an ego. The problem is when ego takes over our entire self.
To be honest, I personally feel safest when I’m alone and not interacting with other people, except for my family. There’s something very calming about that. Within my family, at least I don’t feel the need to overthink whether there’s a hidden intention behind someone’s words. There’s no need to excessively read body language, guess at hidden meanings, wonder if someone is judging us, or think about how we’re supposed to respond.
We simply exchange what’s in our heads and hearts. :)
In moments like that, my ego feels smaller, even almost gone. What’s left is spaciousness in my heart and mind. I can just be myself. I don’t need to wear the "cloak of ego" to protect myself because I feel safe.
But everything feels different when I interact with people outside my family circle.
I suddenly realize that every human being carries their own world. Not a single person in this world was born into the same family, raised the same way, experienced the same events, received the same wounds, received love in the same form, or has a way of thinking that is truly identical.
Every person is the result of millions of things I have never experienced.
And maybe that’s where both the source and the beauty of human connection come from.
But honestly, if I could choose, sometimes I wish I could interact with people whose character is a 100% clone of me. (Impossible, isn't it? 😃)
Exactly the same. Direct. Straightforward. Just existing in black and white, not grey.
Unfortunately, humans don’t work like that.
And maybe they’re not supposed to.
In the QS. Al-Hujurat 49:13, Allah says...
“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.”
I then thought, maybe human diversity is actually God’s way of teaching me something I couldn’t learn if everyone had the same character as me.
If everyone thought like me, who would show me that my way of thinking isn’t always right?
If everyone communicated like me, who would teach me that not all people are able to say things directly?
If everyone had life experiences like mine, how could I understand that one event I consider simple might be something very heavy for someone else?
In the end, different people might not always be a disturbance in our lives. They might be mirrors.
They show us parts of ourselves we’ve never seen before.
Even so, I still often ask: why does interaction between humans feel so complicated?
Why can something that should be simple become so complicated?
Why can’t two people just say what they think honestly, listen, and then be done?
Why does there have to be ego, fear, assumptions, trauma, self-interest, insecurity, the need to look strong, the need to be accepted, and even the desire to hide what we’re actually feeling?
Maybe it’s because humans are not just thinking beings. Humans are also feeling beings.
And feelings make everything far more complex.
There are times when, after thinking about all of this too deeply, I feel nothing but tired. At a certain point I’ve even thought about how peaceful it would be if I could disappear from this world and have no one know me at all. :)
Not because I truly understand where I would go, but because sometimes it’s exhausting to be someone who constantly needs to be understood, while understanding other people already feels so difficult.
Maybe there really is no human being who can truly know another human being completely.
What’s even stranger is that I often say I like things that are straightforward. I want other people to be simple and easy to understand. But when I look at myself, I’m complicated too. (Ironic, isn't it)🙂
Sometimes I feel like I understand who I am, and then a while later I discover another side of myself that I didn’t even know.
It’s as if I’m a house I’ve lived in for a long time, but it still has rooms I’ve never opened.
And maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to existentialism — about existence, identity, consciousness, and the simple question that turns out to never be simple at all:
Why am I me?
Why did God create me as who I am now, and not as someone else?
What if my life experiences had been completely different?
Maybe I would have a completely different way of thinking. Maybe my life path would change 180 degrees.
One small change in life can apparently create a completely different person.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize there is a limit I cannot cross as a human being.
I can ask, but I don’t always get the answer.
I can think, but I’m not capable of knowing everything.
I can try to understand God, but I am still human with limited capacity.
Maybe it’s not my job to know all the answers.
Maybe my job is simply to keep learning to know myself, to know other people, and ultimately to know God through all of my limitations.
Perhaps ego is not something I should hate. Ego is part of me that I need to understand. It can be a protector when I need boundaries, but it can become a prison when I let it decide how I see the entire world.
And maybe humans were not created to always live in black and white.
Maybe most of life is grey.
Maybe we meet different people not to find copies of ourselves, but to learn that the world is far wider than our perspective.
I still don’t fully know who I am.
And maybe that’s okay.
Because maybe being human means living with questions that are never finished.
The more I think, the more things I want to ask.
And the more I ask, the more I realize how small I am in front of something far greater than my mind can grasp.
Maybe that’s where the beauty in life lies.
That I don’t have to know everything in order to keep living.
I just need to keep walking, keep knowing, keep learning, keep asking and accept that some answers probably only God knows. ✨
