Freeing the EGO

Letting go of control does not have to be difficult. I will occasionally, when I am faced with a decision, stop what I am doing, quiet my mind and concentrate on my breath. I want to make decisions based on a clear mind. The question becomes do I continue control or let it go?

Not all the time, but sometimes I will make an assessment of the situation. What can I do about it? What is the worst thing that would happen if I do nothing? Too often it is our emotions that prevent us from seeing clearly what could be the right action to take. I guess some would call it egotistical, and if I were honest with myself, they would be correct in describing me as such. Most of the time the thought I have is if not me, then who? That is exactly EGO.  My critics will complain that I love control and maybe that is true.  But I also accept a helping hand and like to share in the responsibility. I will work with anyone. I enjoy collaborations.

From the outside looking in, I may appear bossy or always in control. That is a perception some people have of me, and that may or not be true of me.  Okay, I admit I have a healthy ego. I make an effort to control things around me, I like to be in action rather than be passive and let life happens around me. I like affecting change and often don't wait for anyone.  The change I am looking for is always positive change, something to better people's life.  I have the type of personality that when I see that something needs to be done, and I don’t see anyone doing it, I will do take it on.   I want to help.  My advocacy is always to do good on others behalf. If I can make a positive difference, I will do something.   Doing nothing is never an option for me. 

That is my personality failing, which is why I meditate. I want to be less controlling, less judgemental, and more compassionate and loving. I enjoy volunteering, not for any recognition or validate but to get things done.  I am not afraid of putting time into something I feel is important and could perhaps make a difference. 

Like for example, I have undertaken a quest to research and maintain my family tree. This is a good example of taking control of a project. It is a work of passion and on-going, which I began in 2008. If I didn’t do it would it have ever been done, I wonder. I had ten brothers and have five sisters.  That is just the immediate family. I was able to document 152 families and 373 people thus far. I was able to put into the database almost 1,000 family pictures. This has been tremendous amount of work and initially took up many hours of my free time.  However, it has been so satisfying as well. To add to that, I also created a facebook family page, to support the genealogy research I was doing.  I posted the birthdays, births, weddings, graduations, and deaths. This is to ensure my database is correct.  If I made a mistake, someone will tell me, and will I correct the database. Almost everyone in my family knows I am doing this, but no one has offered to help me. That said, to the degree that it is done, I feel a great sense of accomplishment.  

On the other hand, the down side of having created the family facebook group, which allows me to post and manage the page, has opened me to accusations of being too controlling. Recently a family member so “eloquently” said in an emailed to me… “I love how u control what it posted and not posted in this group too.... power and control...”    So I decided to add four other family members to the facebook group as administrators.  Doing this gave me a huge relief; I don’t know why it didn't occur to me sooner.  Thank you for pushing me to do that.

We always have a choice of letting go of things. Not taking things too personally. Letting go of always being in control or being right. Because when I think about it , the worst that could have happened if I have never started the family tree and family facebook group, would be nothing.  Yes, nothing, it would not have made any difference to anyone. Maybe another family member would have done it, or maybe not. Either way, it does not matter. Letting go.  Knowing when to let go is liberating.  Knowing I don’t always have to be in control is a freeing. At the end of the day, was it all about my ego?  

I am taking the next step, I have let go completely and remove myself as administrator on the facebook family group page.  Who knows it might just go beyond anything I could have achieved on my own. I look forward to seeing it evolve and thrive by the people I added as admin before I removed myself.  It feels great!