Day 132 of Your Year to Wellness; Ego Tripping

"I cannot be comprehended
except by my permision" Nikki G.

On an Ego Trip and Can’t Get Back

As a kid growing up, I had some amazing role models; the 60s and 70s were full of them. One of them was Nikki Giovanni, the amazing poet who wrote Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People.(Poem and other Nikki G.)

When my friends and I walked to school, we all took turns saying lines from the poem.

I was born in the Congo

I walked the fertile crescent and built the sphinx

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star

That only glows every one hundred years falls

Into the center giving divine perfect light

I am bad

We all hoped to be the one who got to say the line about being so hip that even my errors are correct. But my favorite was the one about how I caught a cold and blew my nose giving oil to the Arab world.

Oh sweet Nikki. She must have known just how much we needed to believe in ourselves, our people and our purpose. That poem still reminds me to think highly of myself.

But there are some who take it a little too far; okay a lot too far. These are the folks who think more highly of themselves than they ought. These are the ones whose problems are bigger than their accomplishments and their woes are greater than their works.

One day, my daughter came home from school mad because a boy in her class kept bragging. I told her that bragging was fine, but that you should always be able to back it up. “Incredible claims call for credible proof, “I told her. “Besides, it’s not bragging when it’s true.”

But I’m beginning to feel like my daughter. Lately, I’ve been seeing folks who think so much of themselves that they have forgotten that we are all a part of a collective.

·         When you take more than you need, don’t use half and throw that away; you are ego tripping, and not the good Nikki G., self-esteem building kind.

·         When you want the world to stop, look, listen and deal with your issues, you are ego tripping and I can’t hear Nikki’s poem in the background.

·         When you think that the world owes you for an investment you’ve never made; pack your bags

·         When you think you are not good enough for the best that life has to offer and you wallow in that thought, you are already on the trip.

We all need to develop the kind of thinking that enables us to dream big and see far; but when that thinking comes at the expense of others, the ego is working overtime.

“The tears from my birth pains created the Nile. I am a beautiful woman.” Nikki G.

Be you, be balanced, be Beautiful

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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