There is a very popular cake shop near my home. I love that cake very much, and many times I buy cake from there.  Once I went there , and there was not much rush in the shop. A couple of customers were there in shop and I was waiting for my turn.  In the meantime , some more  customers came in and shopkeeper went to attend them, ignoring my turn.

I was expecting shopkeeper to attend customers in queue. I felt very bad and immediately left the shop, and never turned back to that shop again.  What was it ? my it my self-respect or it was my ego ?

Few days back, I went to a party along with my brother. The party was hosted in honor of my brother and I had invitation as nearer and dearer to him . There the host was asking all their guests to have lunch. Even though , I was with my brother, host didn’t asked me anytime to have the lunch.  The host was knowing me, but ignoring me. I felt very insulting and wanted to leave the place immediately. But me leaving like that could hurt my brother as well.  So I just absorbed my insult and stayed  with my brother . I was not even feeling to take a sip of water there, I ate full lunch there.  Just because, I didn’t want to hurt my brother.  But yes, it did hurt  my self-respect/ego.

I believe in God , and used to bow my head when crossing some temple. When I go to temple, I show full respect to god, without asking anything for myslef. In 2004, when everything went out of control from my hand and anybody on earth, I prayed in many temples just like mad and wished for betterment.  Dont know, what God was willing for me, he didnt give what I was asking, but made the thing worse.  After that incident, I didnt stop believing in god .. but I stopped going in any temple .  I stopped bowing head in front of temples.   I started going to temples after few years , as my mother wanted me to go. But some  temples , I still dont step in , where I used to go very regulalrly earlier.  Offcourse,   I dont keep my self above the God . Then what was/is my behaviour  … ego or self-respect ?

I was following up with one of my friend for a party for some collective reasons. Initially, he agreed to give party and asked me to choose venue and date. When I fixed both, he kept on ignoring for some time. I felt like he was treating me like a bagger. I shouted on him very badly.  But understanding that he might be having some reasons for not giving treat and I do care for him,  I apologies for my shouting. After that,  I asked him for few more times for party and he gracefully denied for lack of time.   I never rated party higher than the relation, so I ignored it.

Now , same friend was talking to me about giving party to some other friend. Off course , I can understand, he might be having some reasons to give his friend party and other friend might be more deserving . There is no question of comparison and I didn’t want to compare. But was trying to understand, what message my friend is trying to give me ? he knows that I’m still waiting for that party from him, then why he is talking to me about giving party to other friend ? Whatever message he wanted to give,  … it did hurt my self-respect .  But since I do care relation more than ego, I will absorb this insult as well, just like I did for my brother.

And now the open question is .. Is it my self-respect or is it my ego ?

There is a very fine hairline difference between self-respect and ego.  And mostly ego gets mixed in Self-respect. Normally, I don’t expect respect from anyone and for anything. But internally, I’m very conscious about my self-respect. And extra  consciousness turns my self-respect in to ego.  So not able to answer myself. Is it my self-respect or is it my ego ?

I received a feedback that there is a decline in my maturity level in last few days.

Had it been some other person giving this feedback, I never would have accepted it.  I very conscious about my behavior. Even If I’m at a big loss, I don’t give up my maturity.

But this  feedback came from a very nice and matured person. So I have to trust this feedback and take it in positive sense to improve upon my mistakes. I definitely try to get back to my old level of maturity, if I can’t get to higher.  But in the meantime, I lost confidence of people because of this immaturity.   Now I must look at the reasons what caused this . It’s not about finding excuses but more of  introspection.

I found two reasons… one is frustration and illusion…

A few days back,  I faced a shocking revelation.  One of my ex-colleague was going through some tough time and I was helping her finding better job and her husband.  I tried helping her all the ways I can do for her.  Now I got to know, that there is not so tough condition for her and she is already having a good job.  This broke me very deep inside . I found myself in world of illusions , and not able to understand, whom to trust and whom not.  This was the incident I couldn’t share with anyone and I had no one to talk and take out my frustration.  There was only one friend whom I can talk about it , but I annoyed and hurt him as well with my stupid ways.

I am feeling very insecure because of all this illusions and frustration.  And made some more mistakes with this insecurity .  At this time, my maturity must have stopped me doing stupidity. But got in control of my illusion and kept on doing more stupid things.  .  I might have recovered much better, having some help. I just need to talk out from deep which I can’t talk with anyone. Thoughts are boiling and most of them are junk, but need to speak up and get them away from my mind.

Unless it is shared , people don’t understand our state of mind and they expect same old behavior and maturity. The feedback gave me a chance to rethink about it Now, I only have to control my frustration and come out of illusion.  There will be internal fight with illusion and frustration. At the same time,  I need to be more careful that I should not hurt anyone anymore.

I have been recovered from worst situations and I am sure, I will recover soon from here as well. Only worry is , I should not lose more things which I don’t want to lose.

The other reason…desire and eagerness,

I have some desire,  and which is one of my deep focus for now.  The desire makes me restless some times. But my Maturity often helps me to get back to normal most of the times.  But when my desire had bad hit because of my illusions, I became more restless and insecure. My eager caused more damage.  I mostly care others than I do care myself and I don’t expect anything in return. In eager of  desire,  I expressed my care as my honesty, but it came out in some idiotic ways which  appeared like I am asking favor against my care.  This is obvious enough to create anger in other person as no one is asking me to take care of them.  My maturity also tells the same thing. It’s my nature of caring others, it should not be used to ask favor from other.  But the damage is already done.  Immaturity in the expression is already noticed.

I lost too much because of this immature behavior. But I must thank to the person who gave me this feedback. It really helped me in two positive ways. First , gave a chance to retrospect my behavior and improve. Second … gave me confidence, that I had higher level of maturity and bar is higher to deliver higher .

Thank you. 🙂