Initially, I had wanted to write this piece when the feelings I had that motivated me to discuss this topic, in particular, was still quite fresh but at the same time and quite ironically that goes along with the not-very-positive-aspect of the Capricorn season, I was feeling too overwhelmed to face more than one moment of truth as the new year begins.
If you had read my last article about greeting the new year spirit in the Capricorn season, I discussed a few points that were not only interesting but also quite insightful in a way that is open to more discussions beyond just about the astrological aspect of the Capricorn sign and such.
One of the main traits of the Capricorn that we can learn from and also what the Capricorn season can teach us as we move from the end of the year to the new year was to be more aware of the unexpected but to also be assured that in most given unexpected situations, such as the sudden massive hit of the monsoon season sending us to flash floods through the month, we still need to keep moving forward and keep planning to survive, not only to succeed.
To succeed in surviving is not entirely the same as surviving to succeed. Well, that can be taken into another perspective depending on how one perceives it although in short, surviving is a very big achievement on its own.
So yes, we become quite humbled by the sudden experiences, hardships we huddle through and shared predicaments by others that allow us to embrace community support and uplift that energy from community support.
However, in truth, like two sides of a coin; whenever some of us are humbled by the experiences and trudge forward with what we can and what we have left, some of us become a little more driven by the ego of assuming and lacking in the ability to listen and to understand. As in, truly listen and understand.
Which made me bring up questions such as:
- When you want to help someone, are you truly helping them?
- What are the most effective ways to help the people as a whole?
- Are some of us just really only providing assistance based on what we choose to understand? Or…
- Have we asked what the other thinks is best for them?
With every hardship, whenever we do overcome them, of course, we should celebrate the success of overcoming them and giving ourselves that credit for all that effort and hard work but there is a difference between being confident in knowing we can overcome bad situations and the ego of overcoming them while disregarding the feelings and well-being of those around us.
Interestingly, we tend to get more offended by being perceived as someone acting on ego than being acknowledged as someone who is just doing what they do best based on confidence and experience.
Technically, ego is not a bad thing. It isn’t.
But too much of it becomes a very bad thing.
Before writing this piece, I talked with a friend as we casually read through horoscope forecast and discussing on our shared interest and enthusiasm for nearly all things new age and astrology, I started to open up to this friend about my recent, bitter dilemma of being treated with disrespect by another friend and when I had to dig deep into the kind of emotional wounds that have been there for a while, I realized one crucial thing from all this: When a person becomes too self-absorbed and have lack of awareness of their ego, it really can cause a dent in any relationships.
Suffice to say, one of the most destructive points of toxic relationships do come from one or the other being too egoistic.
As we talked through and I opened up a little more about my dilemma with this friendship that I believe will not last, this friend then pointed out that it’s quite a funny irony on its own that the flipside of the Capricorn season was that it can be easy for someone to lack the self-awareness and not do enough reflection and thus, let their ego take over them.
When I thought about it more and started to reflect on what they meant, I started to notice a lot of things that did not sit right with me with not just one bad friendship but including my relationship with other people who have on few occasions reacted and have been more responsive based on their ego.
One of the biggest examples of this was the way they expressed their kindness to flash flood victims last year and that they did not notice they were assisting with the wrong intentions.
Now, as I don’t wish to elaborate further over here what those wrong intentions can be like as that can be saved for another essay, it’s still a very interesting insight really, to think that in the Capricorn spirit itself, it was one of the good times to understand the importance of self-awareness, self-reflect and as painful as it can be, to check on our ego.
One of the most important questions that I always keep as a reminder at the end:
What are my intentions?
I believe that each time we ask ourselves this question, we can or at least try to get more clarity into what can help us which in turn can help others as well.
With that, let’s hope the end of January goes smoothly and February be more enlightened.
Jasmine RCK is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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