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Kristine Sargsyan

Curator, TEDxYerevan

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Would world become better if there were no Ego??? How to overcome "ego" ???

Often I observe how EGO doesn’t allow people to do a social good …
And often think that world might become better if people were less Egocentric.

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    Conor McManus

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    May 6 2011: Really interesting views and opinions. I think Ego can be a help and a hindrance at times in life. I think ego can be a help within life as it can contain self confidence. Your ego about what you do and who you are can give you the confidence to speak out and do what you think you do best. Of course it is up to people to listen to you and decide if they believe you are right.
    Ego can be a hindrance when as Bob Van Oosterhout says self interest takes over. This is when ego can affect and contort to view of one self. The ego can lead a person to see only one view and in this view they can hurt other people or discount them very quickly due to only being interested in one self.

    The ego is a question of managing one self and their ego. Without Ego would there be competition on a football pitch? Would their be Tesco and ASDA? Would there be competition among graduates applying for jobs?

    My conclusion is that people can become to egotistical and this can lead them to self interest. But I believe there is a place for ego. Maybe not everyone has to have a big ego or maybe their ego focuses around doing "social good" but without an ego I think a lot of competition could disappear I think peoples drive to succeed may vanish and I think it would remove an element of diversity from our world.

    Whats everyone elses views on my point of view?
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      Kristine Sargsyan 500+

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      TED AttendeeTED TranslatorTEDx OrganizerAssociateLanguage Coordinator
      May 7 2011: Is it really EGO which drives development or competition???? In football does the team get success when every player individually thinks of his own show up and best game or when every single player plays with understanding that they are part of a bigger whole a “Team” ……….I don’t play football, but I would guess the second option…. I guess it is also important that every single player think of their own individual best game as far as it will bring credits to the team. There should be space for our self actualizing and best game, but up to the certain point, where it helps the team … in a word, I guess we should know how to put ego into its place as a part of the whole as Jonathan mentioned below.
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        Stephen Wisniew

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        May 7 2011: I think there is no competition. We are competing against ourselves. The mind creates the concept of competition. We are ultimately comparing ourselves, our accepted standards, and the accepted frame of reference or viewpont to that of others-or those we call competitors.

        This is a different way to look at it. Thanks for sharing.
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      Bob Van Oosterhout 20+

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      May 7 2011: Self-confidence can cause problems. You would not want to be a passenger in a jet that I was confident I could fly without training. Better to see clearly, to know our gifts, resources, and limitations. I believe ego blocks our ability to see clearly by overemphasizing our self-importance. Diminishing our importance is not a solution - it only creates another kind of obstacle that makes it easy to get stuck. I believe the solution lies in developing compassion, humility, hope and a sense of personal responsibility.
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      Bob Van Oosterhout 20+

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      May 7 2011: I believe competition is a distraction. When a football player is thinking about winning, his or her attention is diverted from the game. Competition narrows and splits our attention. I believe we have a natural tendency to want to explore and develop our gifts and competition is often an obstacle to that. We need feedback about the effects of our actions but "losing" is very non-specific and can be influenced by factors unrelated to the quality of our work. Competition feeds the ego. I would rather see a well-played game that my team lost than a sloppy one that they won.
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        Paul van Zoggel

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        May 9 2011: I like the way you said that! At the same time I all the time use 'competition' as a means to reach a goal in the example of the Williams tennis sisters; they could practice against a wall by themselves or compete with eachother for training purposes.
        Ofcourse sport has winning as intrinsic motivation, in the 'real' world we need a tippingpoint where competition stops for 'getting individually better' and start collaborating for a common goal/good.
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          Bob Van Oosterhout 20+

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          May 10 2011: Practicing against a wall would only provide predictable returns whereas practicing with a partner inserts an unknown. This could be done without keeping score. I believe that competition has a tendency to put people way out of balance. Those who become obsessed by it will train longer and harder but to what end? Intense competition leads people to try to gain an unfair advantage when possible, especially in an economic sense. Microsoft had nowhere near the best software but their ruthless practices forced people out of business and came up with a product line that seems to become more difficult to use with each upgrade. Competition narrows one's focus, feeds the ego, and makes it more difficult to consider the effects of our actions on others or consider how we might collaborate more efficiently with less effort.
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        Paul van Zoggel

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        May 10 2011: Call it synchronity; Last night I continued on a book called 'the War of Art' and there the author puts The Ego for material gain and The Self for psychological gain. I believe in this tippingpoint in actions where Ego overrules the Self for believing more material gain is needed. So you make a strong case that competition drives you intrinsically over this tipping point.
        Though I can't let go of 'competition' just like that as nature is within itself all the time in competition. If a species has the resources to take control over others or a region, it will do so until their power implodes.

        So I wonder now of to work; is empathy in competition with competition...
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          Bob Van Oosterhout 20+

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          May 10 2011: is empathy in competition with competition... Interesting thought... I would think that empathy chooses not to compete.
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          Gad Baruch Hinkis

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          May 13 2011: it would make sense that competition is in competition with empathy,
          and empathy feels empathy for it and lets it win most times.
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        Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+

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        May 12 2011: collaboration is one of the highest forms of human engagement..the entire brain, the entire body literally comes alive.

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