We get our marching orders from our genes and, more importantly because we can manage it, from our ego.
But we also get them from our country’s imperative: Be responsible for yourself. The more knowledge we have about our ego, the more opportunity we have to respond creatively and resourcefully to this imperative. If our responses are limited by an oversized ego itself limited to mimicry, conformity and timidity, the challenges we have taken up in life may feel overwhelming.
So, key to the successful exercise of our responsibility for ourselves is our ability to manage our ego.
Autonomy and Life’s Classes and Coursework offer an original discipline addressing our egoistic presence — our control of the imperative that we be responsible for ourselves.
This new discipline helps us to create a place to stand — a view from which we see the world and think about it. This positioning allows us more leverage and control, more resilience and contentment.
Indeed, it is in the moment of our responsibility for ourselves, the moment when the force of our nature meets with the force of our civilized opportunity that the quality of our ego-function comes crucially into play.
Do we have the egoistic competence to integrate ourselves responsibly into our civilization while, at the same time, hold the stability of our experiential center? On many levels, it is the challenge of our lifetime.
Arnold Siegel is the founder of Autonomy and Life and the leader of its Retreat Workshops and Advanced Classes. Visit autonomyandlife.com for more information.