Build Confidence not Ego

Kavita Sapkota, Bardiya

A deep apologetic feeling draws closer into my mind when I memorize the happenings about how I was unsuccessful to comprehend people in my real life nearly 16 years ago. I had just started my professional career at a reputed nongovernment organization. 

Having been full of bliss, I considered myself in the seventh heaven as life was jovial and without any worries, basically for two reasons; being at a young age and earning money at a young age. 

Belonging from a middle-class teacher's family, I always used to confer great importance to printed facts of books. My mindset was developed in such a way that I considered the whole lot is compiled only into the planet of books and people who have not yet stepped into that planet have missed all the information compared to those belonging in a circle of a know-all. Oh, how idiotic myth of mindset and a kind of ego!

But the incident totally changed not only my mindset and broke my ego but also gave me an insight that provided value to life "we should act out of our duty and love the work". 

I had an incident that was worth recalling. 

Once, I was given the responsibility to manage an exposure program to some seven to eight rural women from the district where I do not belong. I felt a kind of burden seeing the list of participants who rarely had exposure outside of their district, let alone the world. I found a kind of scarcity at the climax envisioning their travel sickness and my task. I had administered all the stuff, as there was no probability of dodging from the task. On the day, we moved to our destination by office vehicle. Everything went right as the group performed well and learned a lot from the exposure. The participants were happy too. I felt satisfied while talking with the females while returning back to our homes. However, I fell sick on the way, due to unhygienic street food. I was quite nervous.  Dwelling on the situation when one of the females provided me with water and took care of me with all her warmth and kindness. She allowed me to sleep in her lap and cared for me like her own baby. I could not stop myself from shedding tears in my eyes to see her warmth and concern for me. The scenario was totally opposite, as they were handling me rather than what I was supposed to do.

This made me realize that the women participants, despite being uneducated, possessed much more knowledge, a clear vision for life, and ideas compared to me. I have a realization that all this I possess is ego but not confidence. Let it say in another way --- it was not them who were exposed during the tour but it was my exposure tour to perceive the inner strength of the rural females and their contribution to family and society. 

Since then, I have learned that despite the fact that the printed documents hold their significance on their own, real learning takes place from life learning. Even the uneducated person has so much hidden strength and capacity to deal with the difficulty in life. I had never imagined that even such a minor incident could teach me such a great lesson in life. Salute to all the powerful rural as well urban women! 

This incident made me realize that we should develop confidence from our knowledge and learning but not ego. I also realized that ego can be responsible for many negative human traits such as being inflexible and rigid, feeling superior, and judging others. So, we should try and control our own respective egos and not let them rule our heads.