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One way – this energy nurtures, keeps us going in times of strife… enables us to achieve… is self sustaining
Turned the other way – this energy defeats, overextends us…, leads us to false sense of self….needs constant feeding – and eventually grows so big – it must feed off others
Mkt doesn’t know we exist… mkt doesn’t care what we think.. or what we do
That’s one reason, the next
Mkt does what it does – we can either go with it..., or fight our self (under the guise of fighting price) – and of course lose – everything we own, and more - in the process
Society rewards winners…. Rewards those who exhibit that never say quit attitude.. never give up… never admit defeat… (plenty opportunity for ego here)
Society also abhors losers (seriously who among us really wants to associate with an admitted loser)
Trading successfully, on the other hand – is all about being a dutiful loser…. being able to lose willingly… often… small…. and repeatedly – for as long as is necessary…. (not much opportunity for ego here)
“Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.”
― John Lennon
"Successful trading is one long journey, not a destination" Peter Borish Former Head of Research for Paul Tudor Jones speaking on conversations with John F. Carter
The Barking Dog of the False Ego (Found this online. Thought it might be inspiring.)
Our ego is one of the most intimidating and inscrutable realities we face in our lives. Countless philosophers, spiritualists, seekers and armchair prognosticators have tried to define its parameters and its meaning to our existence. We even have wonderful teachers -- like my friends at Gita Sutras -- attempting to actualize and excavate the nature of our ego for our most positive spiritual benefit.
Some would also rather do away with the whole idea of the ego altogether, but according to the teachings of the bhakti-yoga tradition, that is not possible. The Bhagavad-gita and countless other wisdom teachings of the bhakti tradition teach us that we are eternally individual spirit souls, currently going through a materialistic bodily experience. We always have an ego, or existence as a unique, individual being, but what we have to watch out for is our "false ego."
One of my teachers has explained the concept like this: We have two dogs in our heart. One is our actual ego, our reality as spirit soul, and one is the false ego, or our false identification with our temporary material body. Both dogs are barking to get our attention, and whichever one we pay attention to the most, or feed the most, becomes dominant in our consciousness. Or, as the Cherokee proverb says:
There is a battle of two wolves inside us all.
One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.
The wolf that wins? The one you feed.
Our false ego disguises itself as our best friend, when it is actually our greatest adversary in our spiritual journey. It is the voice in our consciousness which makes us think we must be the center of the universe, the repose of all prestige, and when we don't get these accolades we react with all the violence of our envious, prideful, and greedy outbursts, ruining our relationships, communities, and hopes in our own search for the Divine.
At its essence, the false ego creates for us suffering, and according to the wisdom of the bhakti tradition, that is completely antithetical to our natural sense of being. As spirit souls, our substance is made of eternality (sat), knowledge (cit), and bliss (ananda), which is also the very same substance as God. Perhaps the greatest form of ananda we can experience is our direct loving relationship with God through His grace and mercy. How we gain access to this is defined by our practical understanding of our own ego-nature.
As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita:
If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditioned life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost. (Chapter 18, Verse 58)
Vedic scholar Bhurijana Dasa also explains the concept of the false ego very clearly in Surrender Unto Me, his commentary on the Gita:
The false ego ... which is like a reflection of our true consciousness within matter, is the covering over the soul first supplied by material nature and is the juncture between our spiritual identity and our material existence. Any ego-identity in which we imagine ourselves the central figure is acceptable to our perverse consciousness.
Thus the soul, constitutionally Krsna's eternal servant -- full of bliss, knowledge, and eternity -- becomes attracted to the material atmosphere and conditioned by it. He is then strictly controlled by the modes of material nature and experiences the self as if it were made of temporary matter.
The juncture between our false ego and real ego is the juncture between how selfish and selfless we are in our everyday lives, both materially and spiritually. One way to see this is in relation to how we react to people's suffering. When someone suffers, do we feed the dog of our false ego by taking pleasure at their suffering, especially if it is relation to some competitive aspect of our lives, like our career, or do we feed the dog of our true ego by taking their suffering into our own heart, and feeling it as if we were the one suffering. Do we respond with compassion or contempt? Do we step on them further or do we do what we humbly can to uplift them?
Gaining access to our real sense of ego means doing all we can to develop our selfless spiritual character. This is actually our natural self, yet to be selfless in this dog-eat-dog world seems so unnatural, because we choose to absorb ourselves in the schemes of our false ego. This is why spiritual life is such a serious endeavor. We must have an everyday practice, whether it is the chanting of God's names, reading of holy scriptures, and service to our community and the less-fortunate, to help us excavate what is most dear and intimate to us, our real spiritual self.
Every moment of every day we are making a choice which dog to feed. Our spirituality begins and ends with our consciousness, so let us try to become more conscious of the very sense of self and identity we are developing in our lives together.
After all, it's what you learn AFTER you know it all, that counts!
"Successful trading is one long journey, not a destination" Peter Borish Former Head of Research for Paul Tudor Jones speaking on conversations with John F. Carter
you're so wrong, everyone else is part of the market. and they know you exist and all they care is your money. Just pay the tuition and learn from it. As a trader, you have the power either to give yourself money or to give your money to others
good luck
In my (limited) trading experience ego is always and every where. We all know (before we start or shortly afterwards) that a very small proportion of traders make a living year after year. Most blow accounts. How many get really rich and fulfilled?
Yet we believe we will be in that tiny proportion. Based on what rationale? That surely is ego at the controls. After a year or two (the stage I am at) I now know it will take 10,000 hours of structured training and experience to achieve the same level of income I had before I switched to trading. That's five years. So if the money is the motivation I believe you are in the 95% gang even before you start. The rewards have to be as much in other payoffs than cold hard cash.
And if you have got the stomach for the long haul (not to mention the resources) you then have to work on yourself, and deconstructing your 'ego' (imho) is a key part of the process. You can not influence price, you do not know what will happen next, you will be wrong a lot - sometimes day after day. You will want to show you partner a shiny new equity high but will have to report a string of bad decisions and a drastic drawdown. You will trade when you know you shouldn't and not trade when you know you should, you will break your rules and lie to yourself. You will look back through you journal and think "I can't believe I did that". Ego, ego, ego....
That's the irony from where I am standing, you need a big fat ego to get you into trading and you have to kill it to survive the journey. I have no idea if I will survive but I am starting to understand what is involved in order to do so.
"Successful trading is one long journey, not a destination" Peter Borish Former Head of Research for Paul Tudor Jones speaking on conversations with John F. Carter
After all those years, I have just met the "monster" and now I am trying to find out if it really wants just "destroy" me so I will ask it some important questions when it comes to a party again and then I will ask it politely to let it go away. I never expected that I will get to this point with "trading". Trading is not what I thought it is initially. For me it was originally a nice way to make money not to heal myself
Thanks Rachel, mokodo and TheWizard for exceptional posts ...
Must be the first post quoting Gita on futures.io (formerly BMT).
When we talk about our ego, it means that there must be another self looking at the ego. Which one is false... which is real? They cannot both be real as 'ourselves'.
You are never in the wrong place... but sometimes you are in the right place looking at things in the wrong way.