The Balance of the Ego: How Lawyers Can Maintain a Healthy Sense of Self

It’s hard to really make the subject positively state / Some may hate it and some may overrate it / It’s a top story and you rarely see a trend / So all you psychoanalysts, pull out your pad and pen It’s called the ego.

Ego, A Tribe Called Quest

Simply put, the ego is our personal identity that consciously shapes decision making and our sense of importance. We’ve all experienced judgment of someone with a “big” or “unhealthy” ego – they express an overabundance of confidence and have an irrational belief in their own importance.1 Such judgment likely stems from self-esteem issues, or maybe we’ve been that person on an occasion (or two). Heaven forbid we do not receive the respect we think we deserve, so we begin to get defensive and voila, the oh so familiar “do you know who I am?!” monologue occurs.

Egos have been plaguing the legal profession for decades. Since day one of law school, we’ve obsessed over productivity. We check emails at every stoplight and “bill-on-the-go” to constantly keep our mind busy. This self-created feeling that we need to be busy all the time convinces us that we must be doing something important because we are, after all, very important.2 We often measure life by events, defining our self- worth in achievements. We waste previous moments proving ourselves to people we don’t respect.3 As a result, our identity gets wrapped up in what others think of us, or more accurately, what we think others think of us.4

Lawyers are trained to be good at thinking and analyzing issues. We hold onto past decisions, ruminate, and react defensively if our egos are threatened. As a result, we are left to dwell from life’s demands via unhealthy substances. If only there was a technique or practice that could help – queue meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation and mindfulness techniques have been essential in defusing the unhealthy ego narrative and restoring a sense of tranquility in people’s minds for centuries. The essence of meditation is to detach from the analytical mind (which lawyers get buried in), but not avoid thoughts altogether. Meditation’s biggest misconception is that we are going to stop thinking and hinder all thoughts completely. The function of the mind is to produce thoughts. Similar to our hearts beating and our lungs breathing, our minds are constantly creating thoughts – a natural process that restarts on its own.5 One of the principal skills we build in the practice of meditation is the ability to observe thoughts as they are, without judgment.6

The Ego wants to control the narratives surrounding our life. We are primed to manipulate opposing counsel’s arguments and our own client’s opinions – a seemingly impossible task. Instead of wasting effort trying to change other people’s behaviors, we can redirect that energy toward moderating our own behavior.7 Meditation practices can push us into a more self-aware expression. During moments of discomfort, we can ask ourselves: “Is this thought always true or are there times it could be false?”8 A majority of the time, these thoughts are based in our opinions of what others think of us. Better yet, “If this thought was in fact true, does it really matter?”9 Opposing counsel’s passive aggressive email is certainly not worth our time and energy over the weekend.

While the ego can be destructive, we aren’t trying to extinguish it completely –more of a regulation practice. We still want to be motivated and goal oriented, yet it’s imperative to recognize the controlling nature of our ego and not let it dictate our decision making. Let’s turn the volume down in our minds so we can approach life more humanely and compassionately over time.10 As Eckhart Tolle elegantly stated: “to be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.” Having a more open experience to life allows us to let go of judgment and be less inclined to misinterpretation. When our attention is occupied on criticism or chasing the next accomplishment, we lose touch with life around us. Although the ego may hijack our daily practice, always remember we are in the driver’s seat.11

The mind’s activity has a circular quality to it; while the mind produces thoughts that tend to carry us away into trains of related ideas, it also naturally circles back to awareness of the present.12 Hopefully, we can better recognize and appreciate moments of clarity, instead of wrestling our minds into a state of artificial and uncomfortable silence.13

BRAD BALD is a commercial real estate attorney in Nashville, Tennessee where he serves as Associate General Counsel for Lifestyle Communities. Lifestyle Communities is a national multifamily developer, investor, and operator with a portfolio of owned and under-construction assets totaling approximately 8,000 rental units. Primary markets currently include Columbus, Nashville, Austin, Raleigh, and Charleston. He is also a member of Tennessee’s Attorney Well-Being Committee and volunteers for the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program.

Endnotes

1 Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy (2016).

2 Jeena Cho & Karen Gifford, The Anxious Lawyer (2016).

3 Holiday, supra note i.

4 Jay Shetty, Think like a Monk (2020).

5 Cho & Gifford, supra note ii.

6 Id.

7 Id.

8 Id.

9 Id.

10 Scott Barry Kaufman, The Pressing Need for Everyone to Quiet Their Egos, scientificamerican.com (MAY 21, 2018), https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/ the-pressing-need-for- everyone-to-quiet-their-egos/.

11 Ricky Derisz, When the Ego Hijacks Mindfulness, mindful org (March 26, 2021), https://www.mindful.org/ when-the-ego-hijacks-mindfulness/

12 Cho & Gifford, supra note ii.

13 Id.