Massive Ego

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Look at this conceited prick. (Photo Credit: Ryan Donohue)

I recently broke things off with a lady that I’d been seeing.  I did so because I became aware all of a sudden that things were not going to work out between us.  The reason behind this is a common one for me: she was a wonderful, caring, and sensitive gal, and I am an asshole.

Not the world’s worst asshole, for sure.  I think I’m a good person for the most part.  But I have asshole tendencies, and one of them is this: if there is a time that calls for me to be a caring, sensitive person, I will do so for a bit, and then make a joke about the situation.  I can’t help it, nor do I want to.  I like that I see humor in everything, and I need a lady that can take that joke and perhaps make one back at my expense.  I find that most women do not like this very much.

The point of this is not to discuss that break-up, but something she said to me during the split.  She told me that I had a “massive ego.”  At first, this pissed me off.  No one wants to hear that they are so full of themselves that people think of them as conceited.  But over time, it pissed me off less and less, until finally, something weird happened.

I started to like it.  A lot.  It’s gotten to the point that there are several times a day when I say to myself, “massive ego,” and either laugh or smile.  I imagine that she would not be a fan of this, that something that she said with the intention of hurting me makes me happy instead.  Even so, I like that I convey the amount of confidence in myself that someone could confuse it with hubris.  Or maybe it is hubris.  Whatever.

Up until recently, this wouldn’t have even been possible.  We all have peaks and valleys when it comes to confidence, but until I joined the Army, I was all valleys and no peaks.  In my early twenties, I followed a girl across the country because I was too weak-minded to tell her that I wanted to stay here.  I was afraid of losing her, because I thought that I could never do better.  I moved with her to California, and spent the next three years working menial jobs and trying to figure out how to leave. 

Eventually, I got lucky.  I needed extra money and wanted to go back to school, so I went and saw a recruiter about joining the National Guard.  He asked me why I wasn’t considering going Active Duty Army instead.  I didn’t have an answer to that, so he asked me one of the most important questions anyone would ever ask me: “If you don’t have anything going on here, what do you have to lose?”  He had me there.  I didn’t have anything to lose, but I had everything to gain.  I signed up for Active Duty.

I went to Basic Training, and they broke me down like the pathetic little guy I was.  I was one of the weakest guys there, both physically and emotionally.  I wrote constant letters to my ex (who had become my wife by this time) and my parents telling them that I was afraid that I wouldn’t make it through.  But this is all part of the plan in Basic Training.  Some people don’t really need it, because they’re already strong enough.  I desperately needed it.  They broke me down, and then they built me back up.  And my life changed forever.  For the first time in my life, I had confidence.  Not much confidence, mind you, but enough to make a huge difference.  I started making positive changes in my life almost immediately.  Eventually, those changes caused my divorce (another, much longer story, for another time).  I did my four Active Duty years and then I came home to Massachusetts. 

And that brings us to today, and having been told less than a month ago that I have a massive ego.   I’m so far from that unconfident, weak little boy that I’ve gone in the other direction completely.  There is at least one person out there that thinks I’m too confident.  I suppose that should make me consider whether or not I need to put my ego in check, but I’m too happy that I’ve made it this far to even worry about that.  Instead, I’m going to wear it as a badge of honor. 

Who knows, perhaps I’ll even have shirts made with “Massive Ego” printed on them.  I’m just not sure that shirts will be enough of a tribute to my genius.  Maybe if they had a picture of my face on them? 

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