Human ego! Makes me wonder to what extent we can go to protect it and feed it. I understand it has given to be us as a part of our creation like in Bhagwad Gita Krishna said it is one out of other components we are made up of. But it is given so that we can overcome our darker side and reach to light. However, sometimes to protect our ego we are ready to goto any extent even if it means losing our loved ones. One lady was crying badly as her husband asked to leave home in the middle of the night. So I asked her what had happened? She explained that he came home drunk and was not in his senses. He broke many things and his parents also blamed her for not keeping a tab on him. Next day when she questioned him, he started blaming her of many past things and she could not hold back. She also started shouting, reminding him of all the incidences where he had acted badly in last 10 years of marriage. A fight which started from one night opened up a fight of 10 years where they were insulting each other by proving, who had done bigger mistakes. It was like other was gaining strength by putting down someone else. Finally when her husband could not tolerate his own mistakes being reminded he kicked out his wife. Now, she did not know what to do. I asked her do you want to quit this relationship? She thought for a second and said that she can work on it and she would want to. Not because of societal pressure but she dearly loved her husband and when he is normal he really loves her a lot. In that fight even she had done many mistakes and purposefully she and hurted him many times in that. That does not sound very good. Why did you do that? She accepted that it was an act of ego. She wanted to prove how wrong he was. And what happened to that alcohol issue? Oh we did not discuss that. We just kept hurting each other more on past issues. So you mean that main issue was forgotten and you two had split on issues which were over long back. To this realization she felt bad and started crying. She called up her husband and discussed everything with him. He told her that to tell me about my current mistake why did you have to remind me of all my past mistakes including the ones I shared which I had done before marriage? He had done mistakes but it seemed like that day even wife had done many things to cause harm to the relationship. Finally they decided to work on the relationship and he agreed even if he would have alcohol he would not come home drunk like this. After one month again it happened and this time she did not remind him of past, she kept saying it is not acceptable to come home like this. She did not have to tell him how wrong he was on every ground of life, all she kept saying was he was wrong there at that point. After that night coming home drunk incidence did not repeat.
This story made me realize that how else we can solve the problem if it cannot be resolved with love. We often try to gain strength or become stronger by putting down others. That is like gaining strength negatively from others which we do not realize. Are we parasites or so hollow that we feed on others like this? We need to ask ourselves. And in reality, no one can become big by cutting down others, you have just made others smaller. While doing that, how low you have bent you don’t even realize. We can become strong and rise high only when we start giving strength to others. So never try to put someone else down, if we have to prove our point, we need to hold our ground with love. Relationships are an important part of us, we need to nurture them with love.
