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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this episode I'm going to address the question of what's wrong with ego why is ego such a bad thing if you've been following along with actualize our content you see certain themes these overarching narratives developing and patterns that you're seeing within personal development these larger patterns and one of these patterns that should be becoming quite obvious to you is the role that ego plays in your life and in personal development but I want to expand on this notion because it's a very very important thing and it really cannot be overstated sometimes people wonder like well Leo you rag on the ego a lot you talk about the ego as though it's a very bad and evil thing and what's wrong with ego I mean what's wrong with being selfish so what if I'm biased towards myself so what if I'm trying to improve my self-image so what if I'm trying to build myself up and so what if I'm just pursuing success blindly isn't that what's going to make me the happiest so what if I'm building up my identity so what if I have all these belief systems and structures in place so what I mean look my life is going well and people around me are doing the same stuff and it seems to be getting better and better and isn't that what personal development is about is about building up the Eco so let's really investigate this issue uh what I'm going to claim is that the ego is the cause of the majority of the unhappiness you have in your life and that what's wrong with it is it's very simple it's the exact same mechanism of wrongness as when you decide to spit into the wind so what's wrong with spitting into the wind quite obvious the mechanism clearly backfires on you and if you spit into the wind it comes back into your face and this happens rather quickly and immediately so you'd have to be a total fool not to see what's wrong with spitting into the wind but with ego it's a little bit trickier than that because the ego likes to operate through self-deception and subtlety and sneakiness and counterintuitive nasubi cuz the consequences of ego are subtle and they're spread out over time so imagine if you will that you decide to spit into the wind one day and you do but the wind rather than hitting you right back in the face with your spin it takes your spit all the way across the world it rides on the wind your spit rides on the wind for a whole month it circles around to South America to Africa Antarctica to the North Pole and Europe and all these places and then finally it comes back and hits you in the face and that takes a month for that whole cycle to complete but see by the time it does hit you in the face you don't say oh yeah I spit into the wind a month ago and now it's hit me in my face you don't do that what you do is you say oh someone spit in my face who spit in my face who is that [ __ ] that's what you do that's what the ego does and therein lies the whole problem that's why we have to really go in there and inspect what's going on we can look at these long-range consequences now before I get any further I need to clarify what I mean by ego so what is this term that we're talking about it's nothing other than what you believe you are right now it's not some aspect of you some evil nefarious aspect of you it's not arrogance this goes way beyond just arrogance and the common day usage of the word ego which basically says you know if we say that someone is egotistical we say that they're selfish what I'm talking about is a much more expanded understanding of selfishness which actually includes your very existence as a human being just by the very fact that you are sitting there right now and your entire life is revolving around you and your existence that is ego so this thing right now that I'm talking to I'm talking to a thing aren't I we hold you as some sort of thing a human being a creature and animal whatever you feel like you are that soul that you think inhabits your mind maybe maybe that's how you think of yourself or maybe you just think of yourself as just a body and a mind and a brain that right there that is ego it's the entire identification that you've constructed from the very basic identification of just identifying with your mind and body and brain and maybe soul if you identify with that and your very basic needs for food water and shelter so that you can keep surviving in this existence so that's the very basic foundation but then all the add-ons that you like to add on to that so it's how you look at yourself it's your self-image it's how cool you think you are it's all the problems you think you have in your life it's all the positive characteristics that you ascribe to yourself it's all the beliefs that you hold it's the personal story you have of how you grew up and where you went to school and who your parents were and how you're connected to all that that's your entire identity now most people think that this is just taken for granted as like oh well this is how life is this is what is physically true but that's not what's physically true that is ideas in your mind and various images that have been wedded together in a rather arbitrary way but to you because it is you it seems unquestionable and what I'm claiming is that that that entire identity structure is the problem and that's what I refer to as the ego so let's start going deeper and deeper and actually getting into the specifics of how the ego backfires in your life and how it creates much of the suffering in your life because until you start to become aware of this then what I'm just talking about is way too abstract and it doesn't seem practical so to make this practical we can take a look at what's wrong with ego from another perspective one way to answer that question is to say well basically what's wrong with ego is every single problem you have in your life and everything you hate about life and I want to show you how that is but to do that first we need to actually get clear about what you hate about life so what I'd like you to do in a second is you're going to pause this recording and you can do very quick assignment form you're going to plaid piece paper in a pen you're going to pause this and you're going to make a list a quick list just spend a few minutes on this make a very quick list of the top 20 things let's say that you don't like about life whatever that might be might be you know I hate my parents and my spouse is mid nagging me and my my kids are doing something wrong and my boss is doing something wrong and I don't have enough money all this kind of stuff so whatever that is for you so go ahead and pause this recording and do that assignment okay welcome back so you have your little list now your list might look something like this this is a sample list it's not my private list this is just a sample example that I came up with so it might look something like I hate having money problems I hate my job my spouse annoys me my kids are getting bad grades in school I can't sleep well I feel depressed sometimes even sometimes I have suicidal thoughts I feel stressed and tired I don't have time to myself my boss is an idiot my parents are creating problems for me because they're so stubborn and dogmatic government is corrupt I'm scared of getting cancer losing weight is very difficult for me and I don't like how I look and in general my life is difficult and it's a struggle it feels like an uphill battle all the time so that's the list that I came up with just as an example your list probably looks something similar to this now here's the shocker and here's something where you have to really open your mind and try to consider this from my perspective what if all of this stuff on this list your list is the result of ego and is not an inherent facet of life let that sink in for a second because most people what they say is they just have kind of a sort of knee-jerk reaction they just say oh no only oh that that can't be the case that can't be the case this list of stuff that I hate about life it's this way because this is how life is and there's not much that we can do about it this is just how life is we have to accept life exactly as it is but consider that that's not the case in fact consider that that's a defense mechanism of the ego if you say that and that in fact life is not inherently that way it only appears that way because you've been living your life with a very strong ego and so this list of things is actually a list of the things that the ego creates for itself this is a list of every backfiring consequence of the ego this might seem a little far-fetched because you might say well leo how is you know government being corrupt a consequence of my ego isn't that what you're saying and how is it that you know my stubborn parents who don't want to do the right things how they are are you saying there are consequence of my ego or how is it that the stress and tiredness that I have because I work two jobs full-time how is that a response and a consequence of my ego or the money problems I have that's not related to my ego is it is that what you're saying and yes that is what I'm saying but you have to remember what I said earlier is that the ego has subtle subtle subtle and sneaky long-range consequences it's not simply a matter of a causes B B causes C and that's the end of the line if you think of the consequences of ego as just following this very simple two or three step chain of consequences or this chain of cause and effect then it's not going to seem plausible to you what I'm saying instead you have to think of it more of like a causes B B causes C C causes D D causes e FG all the way down the line to Z and so there's a pretty long chain there and what that requires is you actually honestly examining this chain to see what's really going on so I want to help you to do that and what I want to do is I want to give you a list of all the typical consequences of ego that happened in the average person's life your life of course and then it'll be your job to investigate further how exactly your ego is responsible for these consequences specifically in your life because I don't have time to go into each one of these I actually sat down and originally I just wanted to create a list of all the bad stuff that results from ego and the list ended up being huge it's a huge list because the ego is responsible for so many negative things basically in a nutshell all your suffering in life as a very simple rule of thumb you can just say where am i suffering in my life okay I'm suffering here okay how did I do that how did my ego do that okay and then you go and investigate and you will eventually discover how the ego is doing that but see for most people that's so far-fetched that they can't even believe that it's possible that they themselves are creating their own problems so let's give you a little taste of this list firstly fear and anxiety this is pretty much all created by Iko every single fear and anxiety that you've ever had in your life think about the significance of that that's all related to your identity also think about all the anger bitterness hatred violence and intolerance that you've encountered in your life especially the stuff that you've generated so who are you angry at who are you bitter at who do you hate who have you even done violence to and where are you intolerant in your life all of that pretty much almost all of it is grounded in your identity and in your ego and think about how much suffering that creates for you also outrage and unfairness do you feel outraged sometimes do you feel like life is unfair that people treat you unfairly well that's pretty much a consequence of ego your ego guilt and regret do you have deep regrets in your life do you feel guilty about doing stuff that you shouldn't have done or not doing stuff well that's mostly all ego related how about annoyances do you face annoyances in your life the neighbors annoy you the dog annoys you the kids annoy you your spouse annoys you believe it or not that's very much tied with your ego criticism and blame pretty much all instances where you are critical of other people you are negative about other people or situations and you blame others that's all connected to your ego that stuff does not exist without ego emotional pain is largely ego created depression is very largely ego created dissatisfaction disappointment with life do people disappoint you does your government disappoint you does your boss disappoint you are you just not able to find the fulfillment and contentment in life that you wanted to find that's because of ego almost no other reason shyness and insecurity do you have that problem do you have confidence problems do you feel inauthentic do you feel like you sell yourself out that you break your own word and break your own values and act out of integrity what do you think that is that's all a function of your identity that's not inherent to life how about not liking yourself do you not like yourself do you not like your personality or maybe you don't like your physical appearance a lot of people think that not liking their physical appearance that this has something to do with like well I'm not as beautiful or handsome as I thought I should be has nothing to do that it's all connected to your identity into your ego think about how much suffering you've created in your life because you did not accept who you were psychologically as a personality as a character and who you are physically as this body sitting there right now how about boredom loneliness and neediness you have these problems think about all the times you were born lonely or needy in your tire life what if I told you that all of that was a consequence of ego and it didn't have to be that way that would be pretty significant wouldn't it how about stress and chronic fatigue do you suffer from those those are all ego created there's no reason that life should be inherently stressful and there's no reason you should always be fatigued addictions do you have addictions any addiction okay what it is drugs porn sex food TV alcohol coffee anything this is all connected to your identity into your ego sexual misconduct do you have that problem cheating do you have that problem that's all ego created how about lying dishonesty and the spreading of untruth every single lie you've ever made in your entire life and every instance where you were dishonest was pretty much related to your ego exploitative and manipulative behaviors think about how many of those you engage in how much suffering they end up causing you in the long run that's all connect it to ego there's no need to manipulate or exploit anybody without ego how about relationship problems pretty much every single relationship problem ties back to ego if people are leaving you if people are being needy with you if you're having quarrels and arguments there's a lot of drama in your relationships you don't know how to communicate in relationships there's various fears inside your relationships there's jealousy problems sexual problems all this stuff where do you think this is all grounded in right your ego how about self sabotaging behaviors do you have that problem that is purely ego how about money problems you have money problems those are largely ego created do you have motivation problems those are pretty much all ego created do you have decisiveness problems are you indecisive are you afraid to make a choice do you make choices based on fear what is that but ego do you have gender identity confusion like you're not sure how much of a man you are or how much of a woman you are or whether you even are a man or a woman and you feel insecure about that well what is that that's pure ego are you working the wrong job or career and you're staying stuck year after year after year in the wrong job in the rear the wrong career even though you should be moving on well that's kind of - here you go - how about the inability to realize your dreams if you have big dreams in life and you find yourself unable to move towards them over the long term that's connected to your ego how about the inability to realize the highest spiritual experiences possible life there are some amazing profound and deep spiritual experience that are possible for you stuff that would bring you to your knees and tears of joy and bliss and most people have never experienced something like this or if they have maybe it was some random one-time event and it's not something that happens consistently for them and the only reason that is is because of ego ego is the obstacle to the deepest spiritual experiences nothing else how about the inability to love others having commitment issues being afraid to say I love you being unable to be kind or compassionate towards other people in your life basically not being able to be a benevolent force in the world that's ego that's the result of ego all those problems how about creative difficulties do you have difficulties as an artist do you struggle with yourself as an artist whether you paint draw make movies music whatever that's all ego that's ego fighting with itself getting in its own way how about feeling offended and self-righteous do you get offended easily that's ego how about Dogma and ideology have you been tricked and seduced by various cults or ideological programs or schemes and then lost years of your life to that that's ego obsessive thinking that's the function of ego hurting loved ones have you accidentally inadvertently hurt loved ones close to you like your children your spouse your parents your siblings and so forth and then later regretted it why did that happen if you take a close look it was because of ego how about doing damage to other people maybe business partners clients and so forth that's done because of ego how about damage to the environment if you've ever littered or polluted that's a consequence of ego and lastly on my list is a dying of sorry death you do realize that you if you stay on the current track that you're on the egotistical track that you will die a very sorry death unless you're fortunate enough to die like an instantaneous fatal car crash or airplane crash something like that then chances are you're going to die kind of a slow death we're gonna have time to contemplate and reflect on your life and your actions and behaviors and what do you think you're going to feel on your deathbed if you're dying a slow death you're gonna you're going to realize all the egotistical things you've done in your life and how of your life you've wasted and how many people you've heard and just how miserable your entire life has gone and you're gonna perhaps maybe you won't but perhaps you're going to realize how all of this was the result of the ego and that's going to create a lot of misery and suffering in your last moments of life which is rather a shame so that's the list by no means is that the end of the list you could certainly come up with more examples of how ego affects your life in negative ways that creates suffering for you that you probably don't want to keep experiencing over and over and over and over again so right now I want you to take a look at your list pull out your list of stuff that you said that you hated about life and point your finger to that entire list run your finger up and down that list and just realize in your mind that all this stuff on this list this is all related to your identity into your ego it's not just a consequence of life it's a consequence specifically of how you choose to live your life and how attached you are to your sense of self and your sense of identity and what I'm claiming is possible is to let go of these attachments and then this list will dissolve slowly over time items on the list will just dissolve out of your life and then you'll get happier and happier and happier until you can dissolve the entire list if you go that far but also let us not forget about the collective consequences of ego so what I described so far is mostly personal consequences so this is like the mechanism of you spitting in the wind it coming straight back into your face obviously stupid right obviously stupid to live your life that way but let's also take a look at what happens on a societal level when we all live to uh indulge our egos so firstly and we're kind of taking a historical perspective here so let's take a look through history at how ego has played itself out every single war in history can be traced back to ego also genocide conquering and extermination of other nations and peoples and slavery these can all be linked back to ego working on a collective level same thing for scams Ponzi schemes and thefts same thing for rape and the abuse of children and women also financial exploitation capitalism and communism so all the negative effects of the capitalist system the communist system that you might have studied through history or that you experienced for example with capitalism still happening today and it's really still in full force today such as monopolies and businesses exploiting their customers and so forth how about caste systems and power hierarchies for example like the Indian caste system extremely oppressive caste system and these sorts of caste systems have in one way or another existed for thousands of years all around the world we're lucky in the 21st century especially in the West here that we really don't have that anymore but think of how oppressive that was for thousands of years how about all corruption bribery and nepotism that goes on in government what is that but ego how about religious intolerance bigotry and homophobia where does that come from ego all the religious conflicts that have ever occurred in history have all been the result of ego because religion creates a very strong identity for you and then you want to go there and you want to fight and kill and do whatever in the name of pervert of preserving that identity structure which is by definition the ego how about historically the suppression of reason science and authentic spirituality what does that come from again that comes from ego egos protecting themselves and therefore needing to suppress science reason and authentic spirituality because these things are threatening to the ego how about cults and intellectual exploitation that has occurred throughout the years and the centuries that's related to ego cult leaders what are they they are egotist strut amok and the cults followers what are they they are weak egos who need the protection of a leader how about witch trials and scapegoating or like the McCarthy trials of the 1950s and 60s what is that that's all ego how about dictatorships gangs and syndicates the Mafia and all this kind of corrupt and abuses of power corruption abuse of power where did all this come from ego how about political gridlock the extreme partisanship that exists in government these days where's that coming from ego how about the oppression of human rights and civil liberties throughout pretty much all history what has been the source and the motivation for that it's been ego the ego needs to protect itself and therefore in so doing it likes to oppress human rights and civil liberties and lastly how about the destruction of the environment the destruction of the rainforests the pollution of the of the air pollution the rivers and the oceans overfishing and all this kind of stuff where does this come from it comes from the kind of greediness that comes with ego and the sort of carelessness and indifference that comes with ego and that's basically what or else all our social problems are so all the problems we have with government with wars this kind of stuff it really isn't any different from what happens with the destruction of the environment because in the end what we've got is we've got a very interconnected ecosystem that we're living in right it's this ecosystem of humans which also includes animals it includes plants and basically the entire planet as one ecosystem and as much as we like to think that we're separate from that because that's fundamentally what the ego thinks the ego thinks that I am here and I am separate and I am more special and more important than everything else out there and I will kill everything else out there just to preserve what's here now you might say well Leo you know that's just survival what's wrong with survival but see there is something very wrong with survival survival runs amok and then what happens is that it backfires so it's the same problem of what's wrong with destroying the environment well there's nothing wrong with cutting down one tree but when everybody on earth cuts down one tree after a while we run out of trees see and then it becomes a problem so that's what all these things historically and collectively have been it's been individual egos that have been trying to get a little bit more for themselves and then collectively it produces a very bad environment and produces bad social and political climates that you don't want to live in in some extremes it's very very bad think about Nazi Germany concentration camps think about all the horrors created by the Spanish Inquisition and all this kind of stuff think about slavery slinging racism think about various witch trials that have been held throughout history and all the people who have been shut up and silenced and killed and imprisoned in the name of protecting some kind of collective identity see the ego doesn't just happen as an identity for individuals but then individuals come together to create collective identities and those are even more dangerous than individual identities but they basically function in the same way so here we can see some very serious consequences for ego can't we now you might think well Leo that's just how history is that's not just how Humanity is is just how it's supposed to be this is what life naturally looks like and what I would suggest is that know let's question that assumption what if that's not how it's supposed to be what if it's that way only because we are letting our egos run amok and the problem here is that we're sort of [ __ ] where we eat and if you go to the park and you take a crap in the park one time that might not be a problem and you might say well so what yeah I took a crap in the park but you know what Leo I don't use the park anyways I don't care so what if some some old lady's walking by and she sees that turd sitting in the grass it doesn't matter to me okay but then you know what like 10 20 years later you have a child of your own and you take him to the park and then what well if somebody else is behaving along the same lines of reason that you were 10 20 years ago and everybody goes take a dump in the park then that's not going to be reap lezin for you see so basically what we're talking about here is sort of Karma what goes around comes around and I want you to start to notice how this Karma is taking place personally for you in your own life how you're [ __ ] where you eat in your own life but then how you're also contributing to the collective problem see and the important thing here is that you don't just point fingers at others but that you actually take responsibility for the fact that you are contributing to this problem and that the solution is not to get other people to stop but to stop yourself from doing this and the only way that can happen is by first recognizing oh yeah I am doing it I am doing it I'm hurting myself I'm hurting others and I'm hurting the environment and that this is a consequence a direct consequence of the way that I hold my identity that's where it begins if you're a student of spiral dynamics and you've heard me talk about that model elsewhere I won't cover it here because the very deep model but I just want to point this out for those advanced students is that with spiral dynamics you have different stages you have stage red blue orange green and so forth well one thing I talked about when I talk about spiral dynamics and other episodes is how the pendulum swings back and forth between stages so spiral dynamics basically how the psyche evolves both individually and collectively that's what this model explains so first like you got stage red stage red is a very kind of criminal highly narcissistic egotistical stage but then what happens is that as that stage runs its course the psyche realizes it becomes self-aware enough to realize that you know what being a criminal has its problems it's not it's not as nice as I thought it was and the problem is is that I'm hurting my loved ones by being a criminal and also I'm really shooting myself in the foot by being a criminal so let me stop being a criminal and they're the ego kind of sees its own ramifications and it lets go and then the pendulum swings towards blue which it should movement away from ego and it's a movement towards collective consciousness but of course there's problems with blue because it's a very hierarchical and dogmatic and kind of religious and then the pendulum swings back again to orange and orange is similar to red but it's not as bad so it's again egotist it's kind of success-oriented you know how do i acquire more success and achievement in my life and you you go with that for a while but then eventually you realize ah you know if I just live my life in a way that I'm only concerned about acquiring the most success for myself personally and maybe for my family that's still not good enough I'm still not satisfied because I can still see the consequences there's still a lot of damage being done to others around me and to the environment and that damage comes back and hurts me and my loved ones so that's not sustainable and then again there's a shift and so it kind of goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and the reason that happens is because the ego progressively becomes more and more self-aware of its own backfiring mechanism so I want you to take note of that and to start to notice this happening in your own life as much as you can the sooner you can start to recognize this and take responsibility for it the sooner you can really grow yourself internally and start to escape some of these problems denying the problem is only going to make it worse seeing and accepting it and then starting to work with me on it that's the solution and now you might say well Leo so what do you want me to do do you want me to kill myself I mean it sounds like what you're saying here is anti my survival and that's right it is anti your survival but not in the extreme that you might think so the ego likes to say well if you're threatening my survival [ __ ] you leo I'm not going to listen to you why should I because after all you're threatening my survival and my family survival know what I'm telling you is to become more responsible about the way that you survive and to notice how your survival is actually endangering you you see when someone becomes obsessed about survival they can actually kill themselves and that's the problem you don't need to kill yourself that's not the solution here but what you do need to do is you need to recognize that you are spitting into the wind and that your spit comes back in your face and also hits other people nearby you and also toxify z-- your environment that's what we're after here now to be very precise I want to make sure that you don't confuse what I'm saying here and that you don't take what I'm saying as something like the ego is inherently absolutely bad and wrong and evil that's not what I'm saying when I say the ego is bad I'm simply saying that it's bad for you not that it's absolutely bad not that there's anything inherently wrong with it it's bad in the sense that it creates suffering for you now if you don't like to suffer in your life then you might want to consider stopping that but if you're one of those people that does like to suffer and believe it or not there are a lot of people out there who do like to suffer to wallow in their own suffering up by all means continue to do that you're free to create suffering and there's nothing inherently bad about suffering other than that it's not pleasant to you and it's not pleasant to your loved ones and it's not pleasant to see other people around you suffer see so don't make that mistake don't demonize the ego just notice how it backfires this isn't a moral issue this is more of a like a physics issue in that the mechanism is very physical in the way that it operates just like spitting into the wind this evolutionary phase that were going through as a human species where we are creating collective suffering and damage to the environment and we are acting in egotistical ways in some ways it's a necessary step humanity has to go through this step but it doesn't have to stay there forever so if there was a point in your life where you need to really look out for your survival and so forth I get that that's fine but don't stay there longer than necessary move through that step and then move on to the next step because what I talk about in all my content is not how to survive I'm concerned more about how to thrive how to achieve your full potential as a human being in other words we're talking about fulfillment true fulfillment and happiness and one thing you start to realize when you start to study all the psychological stuff that I have studied is you realize there's a very simple formula of work here's the formula is that happiness equals the reciprocal of ego reciprocal if you remember math class it's like the fraction so 1 over X 1 over some variable so here's a formula for happiness in your life happiness equals 1 over ego and if you remember math class then you remember that when you have a reciprocal equation like this that means that if you have a very high ego and it's 1 over the variable that means your happiness is very low the higher the ego the lower the happiness that's what reciprocal relationships are and conversely if you have a very low ego as ego approaches 0 happiness approaches infinity that's what happens in a reciprocal relationship so that's basically what's at play in your life now the question is how long will it take you how many decades of your life will it take you to realize that this is the function that is governing your life maybe you'll get it today as I'm speaking right now but chances are that you're only going to scratch the surface because you actually need to see see it happening it's not enough to just believe me on this because you won't be very convinced it'll be just some intellectual philosophical notion you got to see it happening and when you do see that you sort of unlock the entire secret to all personal development in a nutshell all personal development boils down to is becoming more aware of the ego becoming so aware of it that eventually it dissolves into zero and as you do that over the years dissolving this ego deconstructing it lower and lower and lower and lower and lower and lower let's say you start at a ego the size of a million then you reduce it down to one hundred thousand then you do sit and reduce it down to ten thousand to one thousand to a hundred to ten to one and then up you know approaching zero the closer you get there your happiness just exponentially increases more and more and more and more and more and it's actually this is mind-blowing it's actually possible to experience moments you're probably never going to reach a stage where you have zero ego for the rest of your life but it's possible to have moments in your life where you have zero ego and those moments are the best times in your entire life these are the peak experiences because literally when your ego is at zero happiness is infinite and you can actually experience moments of infinite happiness they're profound moments but it really requires zero ego and for most people the idea of zero ego is repugnant because of course as the ego when we say ego we're really talking about you so zero you the way you interpret zero me is oh [ __ ] no me no happiness no I don't want that but you got to realize that that's the ego talking that's not the real you talking the real you actually can see which it's wisdom and it's intuition it can see like yeah this ego it's getting in my own way I am getting in my own way let me take some steps to reduce that and see how it affects my happiness levels and sure enough you go and you try that you realize like oh yeah every time I actually reduce my ego my happiness increases oh that's a pretty amazing discovery what if we extrapolate that what would happen if I had zero ego could it be that I'd have infinite happiness is that possible could it be that good and actually it is that good but that doesn't mean it's easy to get there because of course the ego will not go willingly it will struggle and resist all the way so to actually start to take action on all this theory that I told you your assignment for the next week or maybe make it even your assignment for the next month however long you want to work on this is to notice on a very minute-to-minute daily level when you're suffering and then to connect that to the ego ask yourself how is my identity producing this suffering that I'm experiencing right now in my life that's a very powerful question extremely powerful it's not easy to ask that question when you're in the midst of suffering because when you're suffering all you care about is removing the suffering you don't care about looking at the suffering very carefully and tracking it to its root causes you just want a quick solution the problem though is that if you just always look for the quick solution you never get to the root and so the suffering keeps repeating so anywhere in your life where you do have repeat suffering like let's say you keep going to work and every morning you're at work is like oh I don't want to start work I don't want to start work I don't want to start work and it's just that way like every morning for months for years maybe and you're sick of that well ask yourself how is my identity creating this suffering and be willing to look past just one or two steps of causation it might be more like five or ten steps of causation for how this actually works so that's your job is to figure that stuff out and the more you can do that and keep track of that and become aware of that then the more really true deep inner work you're doing and if you're not doing this then really you're just changing stuff on the surface and therefore you're going to you're going to have all this suffering repeating in your life over and over and over again and eventually my build up to the point where you become depressed or it creates all sorts of serious dysfunctions in your life so there's a lot of reasons here to take what I'm saying to heart and to really begin the tough process of introspecting and connecting your suffering to your ego that's the solution so go ahead and get started on that alright I'm done for now please click the like button for me post your comments down below share this EPS with a friend and lastly come check out actualize that order right here this is my newsletter there's other stuff there there's a life purpose course I have a book list I have a forum go check out the forum the forum can be a great resource you know some people on the forum they just sit there just [ __ ] away but also like I found I've been surprised to find like amazing resources people give book suggestions video suggestions other stuff like that and you know I've learned from the forum as much as the people that are there so that can be quite useful for you on this journey but anyways you know stick around check out the newsletter stay on track meet with me on this process in the future a lot of the material that I talk about is going to be advanced material about how to reduce and dissolve the ego different techniques and different methods for becoming aware of the very sneaky ways in which the ego works see because it's not obvious how the ego does these things if it was obvious then you probably would stop doing it so the ego does it in very subtle ways and that requires explanations concepts that's where these videos can be very useful to you so I hope you stay stay with me for this journey and I'll see you soon with more you