a few days before valentine's day, i thought on posting something from my h4 cle lessons about love, particularly those taken from m. scott peck's book "the road less travelled."
What is the ego?
Often, we think of the word “ego” as having negative connotations. The way psychologists use this word, however, the word “ego” is not something bad. In Latin, ego merely means “I” or “me.” This includes all the values and attitudes and opinions we have about ourselves. It shapes the kinds of things that we will do. For example: We may be tempted to steal money, but then we decide not to because we say to ourselves, “Well I should not do that, because I see myself as an honest person.” And so we don’t.
Moreover, the ego we have drawn through the activity also reveals something more to the ego. The ego obviously has a shape (in this case, a circle), a line that distinguishes who we are from who we are not. The self is contained within the circle and what we are not or what we have yet to become remains outside. The line surrounding the ego represents what M. Scott Peck calls “ego boundaries”
What are ego boundaries?
Ego boundaries are the limits of how we view ourselves. They usually develop naturally within an individual as he grows up and matures: from childhood all the way to adulthood. They continue to either extend (expand the ego) or retract (limit the ego). We want to extend our boundaries because by doing so, we end up with a “fuller” ego. This act, however, is not an easy task.
The hard reality is: to get the most out of life, we need to get out of our comfort zones, which is hard and we are not comfortable with this. We need to break free and experience many things to attain a fuller life. At the same time, we must remember that there are many things in life that are fixed and should be respected (i.e. laws, traditions and cultures, etc.)
If we want to discuss love, particularly how we as individuals love, we need to have a sense of how our identity is formed. Know that our conscious identity is largely determined by our habits, our attitudes, but most importantly, how we understand ourselves. In other words, our identity is not a fixed, genetically determined thing. From the perspective of our faith, we are not just our genes and our brains. We are something more—something flexible, something free, something with infinite possibilities.
tomorrow: love, and the myth of falling in love
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