If you find yourself expending tremendous energy on how…

If you find yourself expending tremendous energy on how you are seen, if you often feel your pride being wounded, if you find yourself reading an article or two on a subject and thinking you're an expert, if you always try to prove you're right and have difficulty admitting mistakes, if you have a hard time saying "I don't know," or if you're frequently envious of others or feel as though you're never given the recognition you deserve-be on guard! Your ego is in charge.

— from Fuel (Energy)

In the book

Self-importance requires constant energy: if you think too highly of yourself, you must operate a transmitter and a radar at once — broadcasting your image and anxiously scanning for how it lands — and that machinery runs day and night. If you find yourself forever spending fuel on how you are seen, your pride forever needing defense, you are flying with a leak you have not yet found. The third is the mind turned against itself. — Fuel (Energy)

Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner; give others the power to decide how you feel about yourself, and you have given them power over you entirely. If you find yourself forever spending fuel on how you are seen, your pride always needing defense, you are flying with a leak you have not yet found. The trap is so old it has a name in every tradition: the value you place on yourself tends to become the value the world places on you, and if you set that price low, rest assured the world will not raise it. — Who Is Flying (Self, Nature & Nurture)

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