Getting Caught

I love watching my ego, it's so much like playing with my for year-old son. It jumps from one thing to the next, ambivalent to what's going on around it. When things are going well ego is happy and gleeful, and when it doesn't get its way it acts out in an almost infantile manner.

Living in close quarters with a lot of people, some under a a great deal of stress for weeks on end, affords me a unique opportunity to deepen my practice. Moments arise when my ego just wants to lash out at someone or something because it had it's feelings hurt. After a bit of contemplation things calm down and quickly fall back into perspective. The trick for me has been to recognize these moments as they occur and be able to defuse them quickly before my ego runs amok and I do or say something that I will deeply regret later. As soon as the truth of the situation is recognized, all of the pain seems to simply drop away. My ego hates being caught red-handed like that.