Bhagwad Gita Chapter 18 verse 59,
यदहङ्कारमाश्रित्य न योत्स्य इति मन्यसे |मिथ्यैष व्यवसायस्ते प्रकृतिस्त्वां नियोक्ष्यति || 59||
yad ahankāram āśhritya na yotsya iti manyasemithyaiṣha vyavasāyas te prakṛitis tvāṁ niyokṣhyati
If, motivated by pride, you think, “I shall not fight,” your decision will be in vain. Your own material (Kshatriya) nature will compel you to fight.
जो तू अहंकार का आश्रय लेकर यह मान रहा है कि ‘मैं युद्ध नहीं करूँगा’ तेरा यह निश्चय मिथ्या है ; क्योंकि तेरा स्वभाव तुझे जबर्दस्ती युद्ध में लगा देगा ।। ५९ ।।
Ego is the unhealthy belief in your own importance. Having too much ego, can stops from being the best individuals we can be and how it prevents from achieving our full potential. A moderate ego is important and ingredient to success in life. The small ego allows us to compete, strive to reach our life goals and it help us do our best to surpass our past achievements.
However, Ego is The Enemy, it stands in the way of our success. It’s the ego that want you to fake it. It’s the ego that wants to look good and successful and looks for the success instead of real mastery.
Highly ambitious and determined people on other hand, strive to excel in their field and be the best they can be, regardless of whether they become famous and receive distinction and congratulations.
Interestingly the Egoists instead chase after too much of fame, popularity and award, whether they are actually skilled at what they do or not.
Put following checks before illusion of success settled down in your head and then turn into ego.
- Become Eternal learner: remind yourself that there is always scope of something new to learn.
- There is always someone who knows more than you, so find someone more skilled than you are to learn from.
- Often pass on your skill and teach to beginners.
- Become trust worthy and trust others and learn to delegate.
- Share your success and share recognition with others in your team.
- Become grateful. Think, recognize and say thank you to all the people who supported you.
Pride and ego are connected but different.
Pride helps us justify our own ego, and tells us how good we are after a major success that we’ve had. However, pride blinds us to new opportunities and room for improvements.
Ego makes us blinds and inflates our sense of worth and blinds us to the actual reality of any situation. When both ego and pride get to us, we then lose track of what really matters to us and what we need to focus on.
When you allow your ego to control your thoughts, everything you believe becomes an illusion.
Never let your pride keep something broken, that your heart wants to fix. Actually pride makes us fake and humility makes us real.