An outsider looking into the current
state of the population of most first-world countries would conclude, given the
evidence found in everything from magazines promising perfect bodies by summer
time to the number of social media accounts boasting our latest adventures,
that we are a very egotistical society. In fact, we are not. Even if ego were
the popularly defined belief of self-superiority, then the evidence of our
image worshiping society does not support its existence, but lack of it. Therefore,
this cannot be ego’s true nature.
The “selfie” is a prime example of
this misinterpretation. Take for instance teenagers on social media. As of May
2013, the average teen on the popular social media site Facebook has over 300
friends, according to a study titled “Internet Project” by PewResearch. The same study
showed that 91% of the photos posted by these users are of themselves, taken by
themselves, thus the term “selfie.” This practice has become so common that the
Oxford Dictionary even added selfie as a legitimate word in the English
language as of last year. One would think this practice of teen social media
users immortalizing images of themselves so frequently would mean an
overabundance of ego, yet PewResearch determined that, “teen Facebook users
will manipulate their profile and timeline content in order to garner the
maximum number of “likes,” and remove photos with too few “likes.”” The act of removing
a picture solely because it did not reach the level of popularity desired is a
strong indicator that this perceived ego brushing practice is in fact a
well-disguised lack of self-esteem.
A much darker reality stems from
this lack of ego. Self-harm is the act of causing yourself intentional pain
through cutting, burning, hair-pulling, or scratching, and can be as deadly as
self-poisoning and intentionally breaking bones. The Truth Hurts conducted a study focusing on these things, and concluded that
these symptoms and disorders have an onset in young people as early as twelve
years old and as many as one out of every fifteen teens in the United Kingdom
is affected by some form of self-harm. The study, published in Mental Health
Practice, confirmed that, “It is very common for young people who self-harm to
have low self-esteem, to lack confidence and to have a poor self-image.”
Has our misinterpretation of the term
ego led to this? We live in a society that looks down upon those who boast in
themselves, yet we accept a lack of self-confidence as the status quo by making
the search of it through superficial “likes” as normal. In turn, we reap the
deadly repercussions of a youth who believe themselves to be without
self-worth.
A society that has lost this sense of
self as described in the novella, Anthem,
published in the United States in 1946 and written by famous novelist and
philosopher, Ayn Rand. The novel’s working title prior to publication was “Ego,”
and her work does a good job of personifying the destruction that comes when
the word is misused, and worse, forgotten. She ends the novel by stating,
“And
here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is
to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all
perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the
heart of it and the meaning and the glory.
The sacred word:
EGO.” (p.128.)
It is true that ego is the belief of
one’s personal worth. It is not self-righteousness, neither is it the thought
of your own superiority, nor is it the act of self-worship. A lack of ego and
its widespread misinterpretation has led to a pandemic of people who are afraid
to believe in themselves and their right to self-appreciation. Ego is in fact
the one thing our society lacks. It is the personal conviction that your life,
your actions, and your beliefs are worth something, and in turn, you are worth
your own existence, effort, and faith.
