How is our ego influencing the way we see the world? Is this ego a way for us to be happier? If we think about ego as the desire to maintain and enhance favourable views of oneself (views coming both from outside and from inside the self), I believe it does influence the world we see because it creates a hunger of being right.
Actually, being right has nothing to do with be seen in a favourable view, even though we somehow believe that. We want to be right all the time. We feel good when we feel right even though this might mean for us to try to prove other people wrong. Whenever we argue with someone, we cannot be both right, or at least, that’s how we see things. The fact that we are right it feeds our ego although the argue itself does more harm than good.
We might be right from our perspective, but others can also be right from their perspective. This isn’t about truth, it’s about opinions. When we think we’re right about something, it’s blocks us from trying to learn more about that thing. If you’re convinced that the sky is red, will you try to find more about the colour of the sky?
In my opinion, this is the problem with this ego thing. It makes us want to be right and this stops us from learning more about that thing because once we encounter something that might prove us wrong, we’ll try to defend our belief. Being wrong throws us off balance when we are convinced we are right. We are used to know something and all of a sudden that something is not true anymore. This messes up our comfort zone and we love our comfort zone.
But the need of being right creates conflicts and conflicts create negativity. I’m not saying we should avoid conflicts just so we don’t get some negativity coming in, but I believe we need to shut the fuck up and listen to the other perspective first. It basically gets to the feelings. That other person feels in a certain way and all that one needs is for the feelings he/she has to be validated. But in a conflict, feelings (like anger) are expressed through words and we all know how bad choices of words we have when we’re angry. That will create more conflict…
In a world full of people, each one wants to be right. No matter there are so many conflicts. How often do you get into an argue because you feel the need to be right?