And In This Corner: Conscience vs. Ego...

My boss and I went toe-to-toe today and it was ugly. For myself, I own that I was reactionary and that I could have handled her initial communication in a way that would have diffused the tension. Instead I chose more of an attack. This set off a series of verbal jabs wherein she accused me of not doing my job, not taking things seriously enough, that Everything is a priority, and that I need to be supervised like a 2-year-old because I don’t do what she says when she tells me to do it. I in turn went on to note that it is probably not a coincidence that in three months they have lost $90,000 in funding under her leadership and that since she was being paid a hefty chunk from this grant for “Administrative Duties,” that I could use some more help from her due to the overwhelming size of the project.

Apparently, I should have flat out accused her of being the Enron of the non-profit world. I received an immediate eruption of how the board cleared that part of her salary, that if I wanted to question it I should talk to them and that this was the first and last time I ever question her salary.

To say that I’m really pissed off would be an understatement and it would be very easy to trash her up and down on these pages. Instead, I offer a summary of what I deem to be the difference between my boss and me; a passage from “The 8^th Habit,” detailing the difference between Conscience and Ego:

Conscience is the still, small voice within. It is quiet. It is peaceful. Ego is tyrannical, despotic and dictatorial.

Ego focuses on one’s own survival, pleasure and enhancement to the exclusion of others and is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in terms of threat or no threat, like little children who classify all people as “He’s’ nice” or “He’s mean.” Conscience, on the other hand, both democratizes and elevates ego to a larger sense of the group, the whole, the community, the greater good. It sees life in terms of service and contribution I, in terms of other’s security and fulfillment.

Ego works in the face of genuine crises but has no discernment in deciding how severe a crisis or threat is. Conscience is filled with discernment and senses the degree of threat. It has a large repertoire of responses. It has the patience and wisdom to decide what to do when. Conscience sees life on a continuum. It’s capable of complex adaptation.

Ego can’t sleep. It micromanages. It disempowers. It reduces one’s capacity. It excels in control. Conscience deeply reveres people and sees their potential for self-control. Conscience empowers. It reflects the worth and value of all people and affirms their power and freedom to choose. Then natural self-control emerges, imposed neither from above nor from the outside.

Ego is threatened by negative feedback and punishes the messenger. It interprets all data in terms of self-preservation. It constantly censors information. It denies much of reality. Conscience values feedback and attempts to discern whatever truth it contains. It isn’t afraid of information and can accurately interpret what’s going on. It has no need to censor information and is open to an awareness of reality from every direction.

Ego is myopic and interprets all of life through its own agenda. Conscience is a social ecologist listening to and sensing the entire system and environment. It fills the body with light, is able to democratize ego and reflect more accurately the entire world.