Why Ego lifting is bad at workplace too?

I was recently instructed by my gym trainer to go slow and avoid ego lifting. I have had never been to a gym before.

So, these instructions, this language and everything related to it is foreign to me.

It took me a couple of weeks to realize what he meant by ego lifting after being its victim.

I started with about five pounds of dumb bells. It was not very difficult. I did three sets of 15 reps. I thought I aced at it.

He gave me a few instructions on posture and form. But who really wants to listen cautionary tales while finding oneself on the top of the world.

I was really happy for the first two – three weeks. I thought how stupid I was that I missed this wonderful thing for this long.

In the beginning of the third week, I doubled the weight of my dumb bells. I felt really good about it.

I even told one of my friends who has never been to a gym and he praised me for it.

I was happy to talk about it. I shared my experience with a few friends and acquaintances who spend 70% of their waking life sitting in their office chairs.

They mostly praised me for my efforts.

But by the end of the fourth week, I begin to feel some kind of pain in my left elbow.

Initially, it wasn’t much. Therefore, I keep on pulling more weights than my first week.

But by seventh and eighth week, it made me visit a physiotherapist who asked if I am lifting more weight than I should?

I said, “I am able to life about 10 pounds of dumbbell.”

He said, “okay, very well.”

And then he directed me to a corner where he placed a couple of dumb bells.

He asked me to pick a 10 pounds dumb bell and do a set of 15 reps.

I thought okay and I begin to do it.

But as soon as I had finished my third rep, he asked me to place the dumb bell back in the corner where it was before.

And then he asked about how much weight I was pulling in 10 weeks before.

I said that I only joined four weeks before and begun with five pounds dumb bell.

He asked me that why did I just doubled my weight within two weeks.

I said that it felt great to grow rapidly. Then after a moment of silence, I said, “I felt really embarrassing to use 5 pounds dumb bells when everyone around me lifting 40 – 50 pounds dumb bells. So, I increased.”

Hearing this, he replied, “That’s called Ego lifting. It means that you lift according to your inflated ego than the actual capacity of your body. It harms you more. It can cause injury in muscle, ligament and tendons.”

He suggested me a couple of ways to perfect my form & posture and leave my ego out of gym.

Coming back home, I was thinking more deeply about ‘Ego Lifting’ but I was not thinking about it in the context of gym but workplace.

If you want to read more about how you can stop ego lifting, read this wonderful article.

What’s Ego Lifting at Workplace?

Let’s get back to ‘Ego Lifting’ at workplace’.

I am a guy who has worked in multinational organizations for more than twelve years.

I know it is not much. But I have had my fair share of corporate battles. And with each battle, you inch closure to madness, if not your untimely death.  

In workplace context, this madness is total burnout, chronic stress and severe mental health issues.

But how does it all begins. I will say – ‘very nicely’.

Imagine yourself as a guy in his early twenties, joining a corporate organization, fresh out of college.

You don’t understand its business, conflicts, challenges, hierarchical structure, and what is exactly expected of you.

In the beginning, everyone is nice to you. You feel valued and respected in your organization.

You may even find yourself praising & thanking your boss and workplace in front of your senior colleagues.

It’s usually called a honeymoon period. It could last from a few weeks to six months, depending upon the organization.

But as soon as you finish your first few months, you begin to get tasks which you find challenging for your expertise level.

However, in stead of conveying the same to your manager, you go on do heavy lifting.

You don’t say a thing because you have a new found reputation to save in front of your boss and colleagues.

The months went by adjusting to ever increasing workload. You turn from a freshly minted new joiner to a five-year-old employee.

You have not realized that you don’t hang out with your friends as often as did before.

You wonder why base ball matches don’t sound fun to you anymore.

You are now amongst colleagues who take their work home, and reluctantly avoid important occasions of their life like watching their child’s first performance at school.

You don’t know when, how, and why you turned into this kind of person.

It was the ego lifting at workplace. You did more work than you should have and expected of you.

Your organization inflated your ego by treating you nicely and put you on a higher pedestal.

You kept on lifting more weight than your capacity yet you didn’t visit a doctor because it wasn’t physically impacting you.

The impact of this ego lifting at workplace manifests itself in the deterioration of your personality and work-life balance.

What’s the fix?

As my physiotherapist said, you need to start correcting your ways from today onwards.

You can do these three things –

• Realize the difference between life and livelihood
• Realize that you can’t sustain this way of life for long
• Tell your boss that you can’t pull more weight than your capacity

If you are already dealing with chronic stress, burnout and mental health issues then you should certainly prioritize taking the appointment of a mental health practitioner.

The forest god’s next birth

_{DAY Ten OF MY CREATIVE WRITING JOURNEY. THE PROMPT WAS “WRITE 100 WORDS ABOUT A SONG THAT MAKES YOU SAD..”}

There is a song. It goes like this Bonomali Tumi, Poro Janam main Hoio Radha.

I couldn’t listen it in its entirety. It’s been used in a documentary called ‘Bird of Dusk’ made on the life & work of Rituparno Ghosh.

I haven’t seen any of his film in entirety. I have been meaning to watch them soon.

But the songs of his films are nothing but magical.

The experience and lyrics of listening these songs made me listen to his interviews and I am an admirer of his work since then.

The song mentioned above is a bit mystical as well because I couldn’t understand the meaning of it.

It goes like this Bonomali Tumi, Poro Janam main Hoio Radha…that roughly translates to the forest god may you become Radha. I didn’t understand it because we’ve never heard this sentiment on part of Radha.

PS – This is the tenth day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

The Spatula and Alexendar the Great

_{DAY nine OF MY CREATIVE WRITING JOURNEY. THE PROMPT WAS “WRITE A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO OBJECTS IN A KITCHEN DRAWER.”}

“I don’t know anything about my future, it may be bleak but my past has been glorious…”, said spatula, to other kitchen utensils, while pondering over a news article.

The latest model of GPT has claimed in this news piece that soon AI powered humanoids will replace entire set of kitchen utensils include spatulas and knives.

Knowing this everyone was sad in the kitchen drawer and looking blankly at their future, except Oi, the AI powered machine which decides every decision taken by a human while cooking.

Upon hearing the spatula boasting about its future, Oi smiled scornfully and said, what future, you are just a thing to be used by a human being.

Hearing this, the spatula answered, you are AI powered machine, yet you don’t know about my glorious past?

It then said, ‘my existence dates back to the days of Alexandar, the great. I originated from a kind of sword which won wars. The silicon shape on one end was added to me some decades back to use me as a scrapper in a kitchen.”

Hearing this, Oi replied, ‘’Is that so, I didn’t come across any material that mentions this beautiful history of yours. I am sorry for underestimating you.”

Upon this, spatula and other kitchen utensils, smiled and reconciled with Oi.

PS – This is the ninth day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

The piano and some plants

_{DAY Eight OF MY CREATIVE WRITING JOURNEY. THE PROMPT WAS “CREATE A CHARACTER WHO CAN COMMUNICATE WITH PLANTS THROUGH MUSIC.”}

This is the story of Rohan, a five-year-old boy.

His father was a professional botanist with a specialization in music therapy for plants. He wanted to prove that plants grow faster when they listen to music like Jazz featuring stringed instruments.

He was a pianist himself as well. So, along with playing all the great pianists like Arrau, Hofmann, or Rubinstein on a record player, he used to play by himself as well.

On such occasions, Rohan used to feel as if his houseplants responded positively to music. Rohan was only 20 when his father left him with an old & rusty piano, failing to prove his theory that plants grow faster when listening to music.

These were the loneliest years for him. Soon, he began to play the piano to feel his father’s presence. He used to play for hours at a stretch, sometimes skipping lunch and dinner.

Soon, he began to feel as if his plants were reacting to his music. He shrugged it off only to find years later that he could communicate with his plants through some tones.

PS – This is the eighth day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

The guy who knew…

_{DAY SEVEN OF MY CREATIVE WRITING JOURNEY. THE PROMPT WAS “WRITE ABOUT A CHARACTER WHO DISCOVERS THEY CAN SEE THE FUTURE.”}

(Photo – Yaroslav Gerzhedovich)

Once upon a time, there was a guy who used to be lost in his thoughts.

His name was Sasi. He didn’t have a second name or a religion as he didn’t know who his parents were.

He used to say that he is free from the clutches of religion or any other societal boundaries.

Detached from the bindings of this society, he used to roam freely, observing abstract patterns in nature, change in people’s behavior, and decline of values in society.

One day, he realized something that frightened him to his core. He couldn’t sleep for days.

He realized that people have stopped speaking the truth in general. They lie when there is no reason to lie as if it has become their natural instinct.

He wondered what would happen to a society where people would stop trusting each other. He realized that it will crumble like a house of cards.

PS – This is the seventh day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

The masked world

_{day six of my creative writing journey. the prompt was “WRITE A STORY SET IN A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE WEARS MASKS”}

Once upon a time, there was a mad prince, who hated the design of human faces.

So upon becoming the king, he asked his prime minister to make people cover their faces in his world and people failing to comply would be given a death sentence.

It was a difficult order for his prime minister. Seeing faces of each other is the primary need of human beings. We are a deeply suspicious bunch of creatures. We try to remain in control at all times. We read, we watch, and we keep our eyes and ears open. We have learned this over millions of years.

The prime minister knew that people would rebel against the king and that this would lead to a huge bloodbath.

So, the prime minister devised a scheme to create an alternate reality for the king.

He spread the rumor that there is an evil spirit around the king which steals human faces and destroys their fortunes. Fearing for their lives and fortunes, people began to wear masks whenever they were around the king.

The prime minister arranged a tour of the state for his king to make him believe that his order was being followed. And when the king himself saw that people were covering their faces, he believed it. So, people in ‘his world’ wore masks.

PS – This is the sixth day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

dry water wells

_{day five of my creative writing journey. the prompt was “END YOUR STORY WITH THIS LINE: WHO IS WISE?”}

Who is wise? He used to ask this question every year on the first day of our school, after summer holidays.

I used to answer him with words like Tolstoy, Shakespeare, or Aristotle. These conversations used to end right there.

He was a normie, not very smart or dumb. We were what teachers usually call average students.

Lately, he has gone silent. He doesn’t ask that stupid question anymore. For that matter, he doesn’t ask anything now.

He smiles. I see his eyes. Yet I don’t see the light that shines through eyes with a smile. There is nothing in there.

They look like dry water wells, filled with utter darkness.

I tried to take his soul out of the depths of darkness. I descended deeper and deeper. Yet, I couldn’t find the person, he was.

He is like a shell, a hollow shape, a world without anything in it.

Sometimes I ask myself why he used to ask and when he stopped asking the question, ‘Who is wise?’

PS – This is the fifth day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

dear jenny

_{day four of my creative writing journey. the prompt was “WRITE A LETTER TO A FICTIONAL CHARACTER AND OFFER THEM ADVICE”}

Dear Jenny,

I am writing this letter to seek apology from you. I am sorry for not reaching out to you earlier.

I should have. I just couldn’t.

I couldn’t muster up the courage of falling in love of you. You were coming into existence out of my sheer imagination.

The more I looked at you, the more I came closer to you. You felt real to me.

At one point, I had to choose to live with you or grow up for my real world. I chose the latter. It’s been 10 years now. I have grown up and seen this world a little more. Now, I am not sure if it was the right call. I don’t know really. I think I should have brought you into existence.

But it’s alright. I believe you would forgive me for it. We could have lived together for 10 years. But we can’t go back in time and change the course of our past actions. It’s physically not possible.

And even if it becomes possible in near future, I really doubt, people would be able to change the actions they took years ago, as they were a different person then. We do what life asks us to do, not what would be right for our future selves. We react to our environments. That’s simple science.

So that’s why I think I would do all the things that I did 10 years ago and 10 years later I will be writing an apology letter to you all over again. Hence, I don’t regret for my past actions, as regretting is like judging your past self. There is some bit of that person in you right now.

So the right thing is owning up your life, your good things and bad things. Seek apology instead of regretting. As apologizing is owning up yourself instead of distancing away from your past self. So don’t regret.

But since I have managed reach out to you now. I have something to tell you. Don’t ever seek legitimacy. I seek forgiveness from myself for doing so, as legitimacy is nothing but an approval from the dominant group of the people in the room that you are in, to be able to stand in that room. It takes more than it gives.

You have got one life, do whatever the hell you want to do with this life. Just don’t seek legitimacy as it is a very costly affair. Instead challenge the status quo, understand the machine and create a new & better machine then the set of people who offer legitimacy in return of your life, will come to you and love to associate with you to seek the legitimacy of your brand, your new world order as it’s just an approval.

I didn’t know this before. I know so now after giving about 10 years of my life. I hope to change things from here on. You can do it right away.

Yours only

TDS

PS – This is the fourth day of my journey to write everyday for next one year.

why this blog?

Hey folks,

I hope you are doing fine in your lives. I sincerely thank you for coming over and starting a conversation. It means a lot to me.

The reason to start this blog is to have meaningful conversations about love, life and lost dreams.

The purpose is to create a space where we can have conversations without judging each other, without hating each other, without hurting each other.

The idea is to tell stories that we often delete because we think the audience and space aren’t right.

So, here we will try to be the audience that we wish to get for our audience and tell our stories that are close to our hearts.

Feel free to share your story at thedeletedstory@gmail.com or just post in the comment section.