EGO

Ego refers to a normal and necessary feature of being human. The existence of the ego is what makes us human, for better and worse. If all goes well in our early development, a healthy ego appears around age four, and then shape-shifts, time and again, as it matures and sees us through a lifetime of adventures. At its inception, the ego is naturally narcissistic, but if it develops wholesomely, guided by both soul and nature, it identifies with an increasingly wider slice of life. A mature ego understands the occasional necessity of surrendering to – and being defeated by – a force greater than itself… Ego obstructs personal development when it gets stuck, lost, or entrenched at any life state – when it resists change, loss, grief, or radical transformation. Resisting self-change is how the ego understands its job before initiation.

-- Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

EMPATHY

My father used to say, “Son, you can’t listen with your mouth open.” He accused me of loving the sound of my own voice, but to me it was more that my mind was filled with information I wanted to share.

            In college I took a counseling course, and the professor stressed empathy. He said we would do more good if we listened for feelings rather than gave advice. I thought this was bull and made an appointment to tell him so.

            “Try an experiment,” he said. “Talk to someone with the one goal of listening to their heart. Then ask them how they feel.”

            I decided to try it on my wife. I asked about her problems and just let her talk. It felt strange to offer no input and ask no questions. I just reflected back to her what I sensed she was feeling. After what was, for me, an exhausting discussion, I asked how she felt.

            “I felt loved,” she replied.

            I signed up for another course with that professor.

-- Wade M. Nye, “Readers Write About: Saying Too Much,” The Sun

                

EUPHEMISMS

Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head…Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.

-- Quentin Crisp