Daily Reflections

01/31/2022

Taking on the Ego

As much as I may exalt those who work in the service industry, and rightly so, I am equally aware of some of the traps and cautionary tales. And there are many. Substance abuse, burnout, depression, and any of a number of physical maladies from stress and repetitive labor. Most of these, I have found can be mitigated with attention to one’s diet and rest schedule. Yet there is a more hidden concern I have been contemplating as of late. The Ego.

Egos run rampant in kitchens. If you’ve never worked in one, just take my word for it. However, it is not the substance of this piece to ponder the swell of ego in the kitchen, but its suppression. It is well to romanticize the nobility of service. To acknowledge the self-sacrifice required to do the job and label it humility. And it can be. It can be a beautiful and selfless act. The kind of abnegation that even the wandering ascetics might aspire to.

This suggests a healthy mastery of one’s ego. Quite a feat for the average line cook or server. I think, it is the mere appearance of this lauded humility that is more common. As I said, suppression. The job requires this as a base minimum. To push down one’s sense of dignity and pride and offer up one’s service to whichever customer is paying. But to do so, without having a consciously built space for the ego to dwell is not an act of transcendence but imprisonment.

The ego, when contained as opposed to managed with intention is, in effect, a caged animal. It will protest, loudly. Hence, I believe, the prevalence of ego swells and bursts in the back of the house. It is the smothered beast lashing out at its confinement. And the length of the fuse is inversely proportional to the length of its captivity. This is much more common in the industry.

Perhaps that is why the questions occur to me so often lately. I’ve noticed a shift in myself as I began to realize the beauty in the ego training that my profession offers. Even learned gratitude for it. With this appreciation, came less and less outbursts. Less and less of taking obstacles and difficult customers as challenges to my competency or personal attacks.

It came from the realization, as the Sorceress Supreme so pithily stated to Dr. Strange, “Its not about you.” There is a freedom in this knowledge; as open and frightening as all freedoms are. And it is this very freedom, I feel, that demarcates the line between the surrender of ego and its suppression.

From the outside, there is nary a difference. Even if there were a distinct separation, it would not be all that cynical to suggest that the largest swath of customers would still not take notice. Nor would one’s co-workers, except for the presence or absence of irrational behavior.

Like so many human endeavors that perch on very fine disparities relative to their associated motives and aims, the proper placement of ego in our waking lives is a tenuous undertaking. For the longest time, I tried to suppress any form of self-affirmation as it caused fear that it may feed my ego. Any exercise of concession to praise or compliment, was immediately met with a kind of forced retreat. All in the name of an illusion of noble self-sacrifice. This is called a martyr complex when it becomes pathological. Upon graduating from simple humility to this pathology, one begins to reflexively stomp one’s ego into a box and hide it away. This, especially when made an expectation of one’s profession, inevitably leads to the outbursts already discussed.

Concurrently, I surrendered too much of my personal space at the behest of other people’s needs. This is commonly referred to as ‘people pleasing’. I dislike the term as I think to please people is not an inherently bad thing. Nor does it make one a good person to actively avoid thinking about other people’s needs first at times. Additionally, I think the words ‘people pleasing’ are too mild to lend the proper weight to those who engage in these kinds of actions out of habit. Again, when this behavior becomes reflexive… martyr complex seems more fitting. And these two behaviors are merely symptoms. And there are definitely more. Were there only these two, it would not be referred to as a complex.

The draw to put oneself in situations where this kind of behavior is necessary or valued denotes a form of self-worth abusiveness that can most certainly be classified as an addiction. I believe more of us suffer from this than we might assume. And those who do are generally good people, or at least, well intended. But if these intentions are misplaced or misguided, it is not difficult to imagine being led towards the absent-minded eradication of ego instead of its proper care and management.

After all, our ego is a necessary function of existence on this level of the universe. To assume otherwise, no matter how divine the inspiration to believe the contrary may be, is folly. No more than an ego itself, quietly raging against its captor. If it must, the ego will even cry for punishment if that is its only available source of nourishment. Hence the idiom, “there is no such thing as bad press.”

Therefore, it is our responsibility, as stewards of our egos to make certain they survive captivity. To be fed, but not too lavishly. To be nurtured but not entitled. To be given space, but not unsupervised. One of the most sacred undertakings of this waking life is to raise awareness. To do so requires the integration of the ego, the subconscious and all other aspects of our existence that connect us to the source. This is done, in part, by the constant re-evaluation of the line we draw between the monitor of ego and its murder.