Killing your ego is one of those popular misleading suggestions.
Yes, first step is to suppress it - but then you have nurture your ego and build a healthy relationship to your inner monkey.
Otherwise you will not be able to maintain any relationships or let alone experience natural attachment.
Most people never check their ego and a walking around making poor decisions unaware of what their ego is. “Killing your ego” to me means humbling myself regularly; obviously I love and value myself but ego is not you, ego is what you think you are at an almost subconscious level.
I cut off all my hair every once in a while, and when I look in the mirror I see myself and I realize that it’s not my looks or a nice hairstyle that defines who I am. I intentionally avoid brand name or flashy clothes, cars, electronics, jewelry, anything that could be interpreted as a status symbol.
People are walking around with main character syndrome, desperately trying to conform to what they think makes them high value in society; they become prisoners to their own habits and I see it destroying lives.
Narcissism and Sociopathic behaviors IMO are born directly out of distorted perceptions where egos run wild.
Kill your ego, and build back a more pure version; don’t sleep on it though because it’s a lifelong battle.
That sounds like you went through some.
According to Freud, it's not the ego you want to surpress, but the Id. The ego is just that helpless person who's trying to balance the needs of future you and present you.
Awareness to some degree is crucial, but being overaware will bring no joy to you nor your surroundings.
Lastly, be careful when you rebuild yourself, a self configuring system that is self aware is prone to corruption. Mainly because all sucess and faults will be attributed to one self.
And of course don't forget to smile at other people's jokes 🙂
