When the Roman Senate granted a triumphus to a victorious military commander, that celebration included a great procession of notables, captives of war, treasures taken from the conquered, musicians, and other entertainers. In a chariot near the end of the procession rode the commander himself. Beside him stood a slave, holding a gold crown above the great man’s head. Throughout this parade, it was the slave’s job to continually whisper in the general’s ear words to this effect: “Remember, all glory is fleeting.”
In 21st-century America, many of us want to hop aboard that chariot and wear that golden crown. What some of us don’t want is some guy murmuring cautions in our ears such as “ego is the enemy.”
This pattern repeats itself again and again. Recently, for example, George Santos was elected to Congress by boosting his record through lies and fabrications. His actual achievements are few and small, trifles at best, but we can guess his ego is the size of the Washington Monument. Crypto genius and billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried became a bank man who was indeed fried. His corrupt financial empire collapsed; he’s universally disdained as a villain; and it’s likely that his deceits and the contempt he showed for his investors were born of a massive ego.
As Holiday points out time and again in “Ego Is the Enemy,” all of us can be victims, often unwittingly, of that self-focused voice in our heads. When we succeed, we may swell up with pride, often to our detriment—especially if the ancient Greek concept of hubris comes into play and subsequent failure leaves us flat on our faces. And when we do fall down, that same interior voice can rip us apart all day long. One way or the other, the ego is managing us rather than vice versa.
Of the individuals Holiday studied who kept their egos in check and attained their objectives, he notes: “They were grounded, circumspect and unflinchingly real. Not that any of them were wholly without ego. But they knew how to suppress it, channel it, subsume it when it counted. They were great yet humble.”
It strikes me that two of the best tools for avoiding the snares of bloated self-importance are vision and humility. Vision entails the ability to assess a situation as it is, rather than as we wish it to be, while at the same time evaluating our capabilities as objectively as possible. Do we have the savvy it takes to open and operate that bakery we’ve dreamed of? What real skills and accomplishments can we bring to our post as a therapist? Pack up the ego, and we can answer such questions with confidence.
Humility goes hand in hand with this ability to see beyond ourselves, yet that quality of self-effacement, which has been considered a virtue since ancient times, has today gone missing in action. We have only to look at our last three presidents to understand that this is so. Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden brought very different personality traits to the Oval Office, but no one would hold them up as paragons of humility.
It’s simple, really. When we temper our desires for honors and recognition, or our fears of failure, we can better evaluate and address whatever task is before us. Manage the ego, and we can better manage our lives.
