Put Your Oxygen Mask on First
A miniguide to egoless living.
Last month I wrote on confidence and the part our ego plays in all of it. It was my first article addressing this topic, and it proved to be quite a challenge to write. I’ve never really been confident, and have diluted myself into thinking that this meant that I didn’t have an ego in the first place.
Last year I embarked on a writing journey, and I didn’t think that I’d ever get to this point. It all started because I was in a rut; I quit the thing that I have invested quite some time into despite being adamant about not ever giving up. I dropped out of my Bachelor’s to pursue learning to programme on my own, full-time at home and, well…it didn’t work out.
I don’t know, I needed an overhaul. My life wasn’t at all what I wanted it to be — not that we have ultimate control over the lives we lead — but I felt like I had to take a step back and analyse what I have been doing and why they were driving to undesired results.
At this point, in my last couple of months as a 26-year-old, I can say that I still don’t know the answer. However, I was able to make a lot of progress with all the self-help that I have been doing.
Yes, I finally decided to put on my own oxygen mask first. I’ve invested in courses, read a bunch of books, and now I’m even writing my own. Nowadays, I shrug off most of my negativity and see the positive to most circumstances the Universe throws my way in the form of Resistance.
All of the above is true, and I am indeed in the process of writing my own book. However, there’s something significantly wrong with this positivity mindset. Nowadays, everyone abides by the “all or nothing” mentality. We need to be happy all the time, and everything needs to be flowing nicely within our lives.
Any whiff negativity or adversity is dismissed.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being happy, or content. But there’s so much wrong with pursuing either as an end-goal. Something must be wrong with you if you’re not on this quest to binge improve your life. I’m sure many have tried and failed aimlessly. I know this because I have tried myself. The only thing that saved me, in the end, was a bit of negativity.
And this article is about just that.
My name is Ilsmarie, and in this article, I investigate why we simply can’t be happy despite all the attention and self-care we give ourselves.
I can already hear you asking, “How can negativity save someone’s life?”. To answer your question, I have to go back to my mopey old self.
I used to be a self-loathing pessimist that despised this very aspect of herself. See, I let people convince me that happiness and positivity were crucial traits to have. Listening to these people had me beating myself over it for years. I couldn’t understand how I had to brush my emotions under the rug as if nothing happened. And the fact that nobody could relate made me sink deeper into isolation.
It wasn’t until years later, on October 12th, 2018 that I finally read in Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way, what I had been thinking all along. Pessimism is actually a great trait to have. Not only that, but it’s in fact, one of the most powerful exercises one can do.
By sometimes embracing our negative thoughts, we can be creative with different outcomes. As a result, it’s much harder for things to catch us by surprise. This is referred to as Premeditatio Malorum by the ancient Stoics. The Stoics believed that in order to live a good life, one must also premeditate and rehearse the things that could go wrong.
When we constantly remind ourselves that our Fate can change at any moment, it makes us not only grateful and humbler but also fear that circumstance much less. Tim Ferriss does this quite often and calls it “Practice Poverty”.
It’s weird, I know, to think that pessimism — what most avoid — can lead to a more peaceful life. But why is this the case?
The Truth.
The harsh truth is that our desire for greatness is often driven by ego — which if we were to pay more attention — we’d realise is based on greed. Greed needs no introduction; many of us know that it’s the root of all of our problems — even as a collective.
Even though we know better, we can’t help but crave this greatness more. Success is what we want, and we’ll stop at nothing until we get it. It doesn’t matter the cost; we consume as much information as we can so we can reach this goal. We resort to living by quotes and routines of those who have already made a name for themselves. And here is usually where most of us get it wrong. We go on a hunt for the two without putting some internal thought into it.
Nobody asks themselves why they want greatness. It’s supposed to be a “good” thing, so we just jump on board of the train everyone is already on, thinking it’ll magically take us to this special destination.
Here’s a part of this concept I’ll never understand. Howcome does nobody realise that all of these things are defined intrinsically? And most importantly, why does nobody ask themselves what they’re willing to sacrifice for this goal?
Surely we’d have to sacrifice something. Even though we like to think otherwise, we’re not that important, and we can’t have it all. How much is the thing you’ll eventually sacrifice worth to you? Can you live without it? Will you be okay with the aftermath?
If we never ask, we’re not serious, and we’re automatically setting ourselves up for failure. We will aimlessly keep competing, comparing ourselves to others and buying things to fill this gaping hole in our souls. And time after time again, it won’t be enough. It’ll never be.
There’s got to be a different way of living.
One where bullshitting, pretending and “fake it till you make it” are not the major rulers by which we live our lives.
One where we know ourselves and are aware of how miserable we become when we try to be someone we’re not meant to be.
One where we’re grateful for what we already have.
One based on a decent dose of both positivity and negativity and where we allow ourselves to feel and explore our emotions as they were meant to.
The answer lies in living a life that’s not being driven by ego.
The subtitle of this article isn’t as it is for no reason. I was able to observe that most confuse the notion of putting their mask on first, with self-preservation. There’s a fine line between the two. And self-preservation comes from a place of defending oneself which does more harm than good.
Our belief systems formulated out of identities and fears is what’s trying to convince us that there’s a threat that we need “saving” or “protection” from.
There, I said it; the ego is a defence mechanism. Reality is that all of us are humans, and all of us have had at least one or more instances where we dealt with some sort of injustice. We preserve ourselves to mask the fact that we’re hurt and that we are not in control of our lives.
If there’s one thing I learned from being depressed for over 20 years is that the more we resist and ignore something, the more it festers.
When we think we’re making progress to not come across as a “wimp” or “weakling” to others, all we’re doing is prolonging the inevitable. Not to mention that while taking this approach, we also contribute to the enforcing of certain stigmas that alienate certain people.
As much as I hate to admit this, the ego can effectively be quieted by exposing ourselves to others. Not superficially and not for the basic notion that we’re “social animals”, but for the sake of real connection.
As a loner, I have to admit that I haven’t always thought this way. I even argued against it in this article.
"One can argue that we are social animals and that we thrive in social situations. However, to what extent? There’s nothing wrong with being social, but socialising just for the sake of being social and adopting it artificially, isn’t really the best option either — it feels fake and forced. It feeds our need for attention, encourages comparing ourselves to others, and supports our desire to keep up with things we’d normally find irrelevant if presented to us elsewhere or in other forms."Not much has changed since then, though. The point is not connecting with others because we’re afraid of being alone with our thoughts.
Real connection, requires some sort of meaning.
Having a real connection with someone doesn’t mean that this is the time to be the worst version of ourselves, where we complain non-stop and are emotional wrecks. Au contraire, it should be a safe space where together we can improve and heal from the inside out.
Together, our goal then becomes accepting and being at peace with our decisions and sacrifices we make for what IS, even if undesired. Is, being our reality in the present moment.
Togetherness is more vital than we can ever imagine. No matter how far we are on our journeys, there’s always someone to learn from, someone to encourage us to keep up, or someone for us to help. Our goals should be less self-serving. Only when we take an objective look at ourselves and our circumstances from a perspective that truly matters, we’ll notice that there’s no reason to behave as greedily as we do. Because we understand that for the time being, one fact won’t change; as humans, we’re all stuck on the same boat. We are quite stupid and weak by nature; we just love to wear masks and pretend otherwise.
The article that started all of this was written out of a place of contribution to others. I could’ve easily been on defence about everything that happened as a programmer. But I thought that it’d be nice to share my experience instead, and look where it got me.
Just remember to help others put their mask on too, once you’re done putting yours on.
As always, thanks for reading, have a nice day! 🖖
