The silent, invisible enemy...

"Is that YOU or your EGO?"

Rarely do I take a picture and not even notice what I have captured! In this case, it happened.

I was out, trying to find an elusive red pretty bird on my list of photogenic subjects ( I mean a real bird. Not a bird in red dress like the 'Woman in Red'.. LOL).

The bird showed up for about 20 seconds and before I could take a decent enough photograph, it took off and was gone. I waited around patiently for 30 minutes or more but the bird had apparently decided to suddenly turn photo shy.

Frustrated, I started walking back and on the trail, just at the outskirts of my hometown, saw this shiny green bug with pretty dots. Oh wow- That guy looks nice, said I and took a couple of shots.

I forgot all about it till today. I am traveling and was actually trying to get rid of some unwanted pictures from my hard disk because I need to get some space free for some data that I will have to store after the meeting tomorrow. I was zipping through pictures and was about to hit 'Delete' on this one. But wait -

A closer look and I saw that my green happy bug was actually getting murdered. Getting killed by a silent and almost invisible enemy! A spider actually was killing it.

This is one of the most unexpected pictures caught on my Nikon P900 last month. Note how well the spider is camouflaged...

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I looked at that pair of hapless victim plus silent killer and suddenly likened the bug to myself...

I am a happy and bright person. Just like the bright bug. I think I go about my business - without interference with others. However, I have not realized, as I traipsed through life, flitting from branch to branch that a silent killer lurked right there with me.

The killer is my ego. It is right there - in plain sight. I KNOW it is there. However, I allow it to slowly affect me and make me into a hollow shell. Now - why does that happen?

It happens because my ego is well camouflaged. It camouflages itself in many ways. Some of them are:

Ego disguised as pride

How often have I not said sorry for simple mistakes because I feel that it is 'beneath me' to do so. How often have
I hurt loved ones by doing so! Sometimes, it is not worth fighting over trivial things. I should easily be able to defer to my elders and let go of things or forgive my younger family members.

Unfortunately, I do not do this because of my ego. I blow things out of proportion by mistakenly thinking my 'Pride' is getting hurt. My pride should not be so fragile.

Ego disguised as righteous anger

Sometimes, I mix up some issues that anger me by constructing logic that makes things seem that I am correct in being angry. It could just be that my ego prevents me from seeing the full picture. My ego prevents me from putting myself in others' shoes.

Ego disguised as Need for dominance and killing instinct

Sometimes, I am unwilling to accept that others could be better at a few things than I am. No one is born equal but my need to 'Win' makes me want to dominate everything that I attempt. It is actually my ego that is driving me but I mistake it for my need for 'killing instinct'

If I know this much about ego and I can preach about it then why have I not done anything about it? That too is because my ego disguises itself as 'MY personality' I have this death-wish and I am what I am. I am the happy green bug and why should I change.... There - more ego- you see?

I am perhaps a lost cause now but you may be able to recognize the signs and keep your ego under control.

In Conclusion:

One day - the silent killer, ego will get us all and all that will be left is a happy empty green pretty shell... Just an 'image' of our former self!

Steemians, please comment freely to share your experiences, knowledge and views about ego. Thanks.

Note: All images except for the wildlife photos and the title image created by me are from pixabay.com. Image credit has been specifically mentioned for images not falling under these two categories.

Gif crafted by the Legendary @stellabelle for me based on my Lion Avatar