APRIL 20, 2020
Don’t let your ego be a hindrance in the productivity of your work. It is always better to let down your ego and be modest, open-minded and humble when working with others in order to make your work more productive…
-Prabhsimrat Gill
Many times, great opportunities slip out of our hands just like sand does… We pick the sand up and it starts to slip away through the gaps in our fingers until it is completely gone. When we hold a great opportunity in our hand, what creates the gap is our EGO…
Why don’t we make a fuss about the sand slipping away and why don’t we complain about it by saying that it was the wind that made it go away or a fish suddenly popped up scarily or a child came up in a Halloween costume and I freaked out when I saw it? Why don’t we complain about this? This is because we realise that the true nature of sand is to travel with the wind and it is fine and slippery which makes it difficult for it to stay on a surface for long and obviously it can’t defy gravity, so we know that the sand would eventually slip away if we are casually holding it and this awareness helps us not make a fuss about the sand disappearing from our hands…
But then why do we complain about missing a great opportunity? Internally we all know that if we treat a great opportunity casually without serious interest, it will go away from us. The reason why we complain about it and blame it on others is that we are not aware that treating an opportunity causally will take it away. Well, the reason we are not aware of this is because our ego is sometimes more important than the great opportunity. A pessimist or an egoistic person will be ready to blame other people for the loss of the opportunity but will not let his egoistic pride go down as he will have to work with other people to use that opportunity which will make the achievement “theirs” not “his”.
Our ego makes us want to earn the credit for everything we are a part of, from the work we do to the goal we achieve or the task we finish before the deadline to anything good that adds to us. Well, it is not bad to recognise the good that you have done in your personal and professional life, it should not turn into egoistic pride. It will turn from self-appreciation to pride when you use your achievements and good to show others down by saying things like, “I made this balance sheet in three days when I was in your position and now it’s been a week and you are not even halfway through it!” When you use your example of finishing work early this way, you will discourage other people and they will have a negative connotation about you at your own expense of showing off your pride.
This situation can be turned upside-down using the same example by saying, “I hope we can speed up making this balance sheet as I finished it in three days when I was in your position and it will be great if I can help you out with this and we can learn speeding things up together.” This way you used your example of finishing the same task early in an encouraging and positive way. You will encourage other people to speed up their work by helping them out and they will have a positive and helpful connotation about you at your own expense of showing them the way to speed things up…
Another place where ego makes you lose great opportunities is when you work with a certain group of people but you feel you are smarter than the others and you show this off by not accepting other ideas and trying to dominate to maximise your credit. Well, you might not be the only person in the group thinking this way, but if you change the way you work in groups, others will also take inspiration from you (good things and actions are contagious!).
We can maximise our productivity at school and work by realising that being credited for the work is not the end of the job. While working with people, you can choose to make lifelong friendships and relations over getting “the credit of having done everything”. We need to realise that work can never be done by saying, “I am the smartest person around and you all need to work according to me because I know more than you.” Work can be done very productively by saying, “Why not work together and recognise each other’s ideas and take wise decisions together?” This way you will help others in the group gain trust and confidence in each other and productivity will shoot up to the skies! But, we also need to take care of some more things. Sometimes when one starts to work by compromising on the pride of being smart, rich etc., the ego starts to bounce back and if you listen to it in between the work and you start bossing around with “the ego”, you will exacerbate the situation very badly… It is always best to let the ego go down four steps and to allow abundance, productivity and fulfilment go up a thousand steps…
We all have some or the other kind of ego in us, but when we learn and become aware about it, we stop it from controlling us and that way we can grab great opportunities, work cooperatively and open-mindedly and we will have the chance to let the ego subside and to let productivity, fulfilment, friendship, and happiness rise!!!