A few years ago, as the holiday season approached with it's usual speed and deadly accuracy, I remember feeling worried at the thought of socializing with two people I didn't particularly care for. The individuals in question, two former friends who were still very close to my spouse, were going to be in my presence for the first time in months. I hadn't seen them in person since The Incident -- a terrible night in which they drunkenly ganged up on me and subjected me to a barrage of undeserved insults.
The fallout from that argument was intense. I had felt so wronged. My strongly-held principles were challenged, causing me to refuse to speak with those two for months after. And despite assurances from my spouse that they felt remorse for the way they treated me, I resolved to remain angry at them.
In the end, I was left with a simmering rage which almost tore my family apart.
It was this crisis which led me to realize that something had to give. Yet how could I forgive them? How could I let go of my anger without conceding "defeat"? The answer was surprisingly simple. I needed to let go of my attachment to my ego.
The Dangers of Attachment
The doctrine of non-attachment has been around since ancient times. The yoga masters of India, and later their Buddhist cousins, knew that an individual's spiritual journey could not be completed until all earthly attachments were severed. Whether or not you believe in the mystical elements here, this idea has tremendous relevance to our daily lives.
Consider the amount of value we, as a consumerist society, place on common goods. Household debt is at an all-time high, with people thinking nothing of spending thousands of borrowed dollars to purchase big-ticket items. Cooler cell phones, bigger cars, flatter televisions are flooding the market at an unprecedented rate.
This is how we, as a society, have come to identify ourselves: by the amount and quality of stuff we have. And for us to be truly content in life, this attachment to our stuff has to end. Once you no longer crave the bigger-faster-better mentality, then all of a sudden you'll find yourself just as happy with a $300 television than with a $3000 one.
Practicing non-attachment is a discipline, and it's not always easy. We're constantly bombarded with advertising telling us what we have to buy to fit into society. After a while, though, you'll find there's no going back. You'll be calmer, richer and more content while your friends descend into bankruptcy.
However, eschewing attachment to objects is only the first step towards happiness.
Attachment to Your Ego
The concept of the ego is highly misunderstood. In fact, most of us would deny we even have one! We tend to think of petulant celebrities having a temper tantrum on a movie set if their double latte is two degrees too cold as being the definition of ego, when in reality this is simply an example of being a brat.
No, we all have an ego. It's the mechanism through which we define ourselves; it's the essence of who we are. Every experience we have, every relationship, every thought is filtered through the ego to help us decide how the world relates to us. Am I a good person? Bad person? Too fat? Too thin? Just right? All of these are questions constantly being asked of us by our ego.
Therefore, our ego is our sense of self, or more accurately, how we think we view ourselves. And if this view of ourselves is held too tightly, it can very easily be bruised.
Getting back to my story at the beginning of the article, I wasn't able to let go of my hurt because I didn't want to. It was empowering to feel bad. My ex-friends had hurt my feelings, and I held a grudge for six months.
By the time I was finally in the same room with them, I had decided to let go of my ego. It didn't matter whether they were wrong or right. What mattered is that it didn't matter. My sense of who I am had nothing to do with them. A calm peace had broken out and I allowed myself to forgive.
Just as an attachment to objects can be intoxicating, so too can one's attachment to their sense of self. Remember that everything in life is fleeting, that nothing is set in stone. So just let it go.
