Work and the Ego 

Ego attachment at work is integrated into our lives.  We have ‘careers’, positions, and titles.  We do our best to ‘move up the ladder.  Most of us have resumes and online profiles that talk about our experiences and accomplishments. It’s a part of life that we have to identify as someone. We’re boxed into having individual existences. The ego builds a story of who it thinks we are, who it thinks we should be and what it thinks we should be doing. This creates an attachment. 

Suffering

The issue with this is that the ego may be overprotective of this story and take your identity too seriously. You may get sucked into the illusion of thinking that what you do is who you are. Yoga has a concept that specifically addresses this behavior. 

In The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra 2.6 introduces this concept as ‘Asmita’, or false-identification.  Asmita is one of the 5 common afflictions of the mind, called Kleshas. Kleshas are behaviors and ways of being, or tendencies that are often described as being programmed into us. These tendencies cause us suffering. 

The tendency for the ego to false-identify with something is common. I have false-identified with a lot of things. This includes the shape of my body. When I was overweight I assumed that I was unattractive and allowed myself to become depressed. Then, when I was dating an attractive woman, I completely dropped the old identification and was happy. Was I that different?

More Suffering

I worked for 10 years as an engineer and I never was anything else. I was never a lead engineer, a senior engineer, a manager or a director. The idea in my head was always there that I would get those higher status jobs, be a leader, etc. What was that idea? It was the story that I had always told myself. I was going to be super successful. I was going to get the promotions I wanted and ‘make it‘.

My success showed up differently than the story. I moved and changed companies frequently within those 10 years, not staying places long enough to get a promotion. Despite this, I had great achievements.  I got to work at a company that had contracts with NASA, building rockets and designing spacecraft. It was a dream. At that same company, I was selected to be in a rotation program and I got to work in a number of different roles. After that, I had such a breadth of knowledge that I got to work in a department that oversaw the entire company.  I still suffered. 

The suffering was because my ego clung to the old story of what success was.

It did not accept reality as being good enough because I hadn’t achieved the goals set by the old story. The thoughts of lack, or strategies to get higher positions were relentless and distracting. I remember my mind obsessing over people that had positions I wanted.  Sometimes, I would sit in meetings observing them, wondering how they got to where they were. I wasn’t present and I wasted so much time with distracting thoughts like this. 

Why was I clinging to the old story?

The story gave me something to work for and achieve. A model that guided my career. The model that my parents taught me, and what I learned in college.  A story that relied on an oversimplification of what success is. The kind of success that is easy to show or prove.

Often in the western world, the first question asked when meeting someone is, “What do you do?” I always answered this question with what position I had. This automatically made it the first and most important piece of information that I had to offer. I pressured myself to have the best and most impressive answer possible. I took it wayyy too seriously.

Shifting my perception

In actuality, the story was much more than getting into certain positions. It was a vision of learning skills, doing valuable work, getting to work on exciting things, and being a leader. I had achieved all of this within my engineering career but wasn’t seeing it because my achievements didn’t match the old story. I lacked contentment. 

Another important concept in yoga is Santosha or contentment. Living with humility, modesty, and acceptance. Finding contentment with what we have and who we are. It is not about stagnation or laziness, but rather an acceptance of who we are and living with gratitude.

I had a lot to be grateful for. 

What is real?

A dedicated spiritual practice can reveal the true self. To understand that we are afflicted by our egos and the stories they cling to. To transcend them. One of the most popular chants in yoga practice is the Prayer for Enlightenment. The first line of the chant is, “Asatoma sadgmaya”, meaning lead me from the unreal to the real.

I’m not saying that chanting this chant has enlightened me, but again and again, it reminds me not to be attached to a story. My true self is not limited to how it fits into some story. It’s not limited to bullet points on resumes or titles that I’ve had.  I’m just going through life, doing the best I can.

On Purusha vs Prakriti – Lessons for Life

Yoga taught me to reframe my perception using the concept of Purusha vs Prakriti. This concept comes from one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy called Samkhya. In Samkhya Purusha and Prakriti are used to describe the human conditions. While we are living beings we also have a soul.  ‘Purusha’ means the seer or the witness. It is pure awareness, or consciousness itself. It’s the soul or the true self. Prakriti is nature, the material world, the mind and the stories held by the ego.

I have had many roles in life: son, friend, boyfriend, student, fraternity president, engineer, yoga teacher, etc. I’ve been attached to every role.  All of these roles I’ve had, are Prakrti. They’re a part of the world I’ve been living in and like nature, it’s changing all the time. 

The concept of Purusha separates us from Prakrti. Purusha can be described as pure consciousness. A place beyond the thoughts.  I once followed a guided meditation given in a lecture by Ram Dass.  The meditation involved giving undivided attention to the flame of a candle.  I sat a candle down on a table, lit it, and then I just watched.  The amazing thing about that mediation is that I became the flame.  I watched the flame for so long that thoughts started to fade away. Eventually, it was just me and the flame.   

A change in perspective

That meditation completely changed my perspective on things.  If you take the flame away you have Purusha. This is because you can replace the flame with anything like a beautiful view, or being 100% present playing a song.  Purusha is pure consciousness. Learn more about svadhyaya.

What’s next?

Maybe you haven’t connected with your true self enough. Maybe you haven’t found the space to disconnect from the happenings in your life to take a closer examination of your inner self. You must find opportunities to escape and detach. 

Here are some things you can do

• • Start or deepen your meditation practice
  • Do yoga, to tune your body for meditation. 
  • Go on a retreat. Try a place that is remote and beautiful, like Doron Yoga & Zen Center. 
  • Find a community of friends to share your self-study and realizations with
  • Bring more awareness to your stories by writing them down, or taking them out on a voice recorder.
  • Get a huge teddy bear to add some humor and comfort to your work place.
  • Sit on a cloud/ Observe at your life from a high above perspective. You may take your ego less seriously

About the author 

Doug Duchon is taking the 300 hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training at the Doron Yoga & Zen Center in Guatemala. He has spent 4 months of living and working for Doron in Guatemala. Doug’s other training includes 200h Bhakti Vinyasa, 50h Yin and Restorative, and 50 hour kirtan training from Govind Das at Bhakti Yoga Shala in Santa Monica, California. 

Doug writes about how yoga can be integrated into the modern workforce and used to achieve a better work-life balance. Before becoming a yoga teacher he spent 10 years working as an engineer in various industries including Aerospace where helped build rockets and spacecraft for NASA’s astronautical programs.

Instagram: @updougyoga