My ego threatens to take over when I whisper, ‘I deserve better’

By David McElroy · June 2, 2020

I sometimes disappoint myself. I guess we all do sometimes, but I don’t know what it’s like to be inside your secret thoughts. I can’t see the dark lust you might have hidden in your heart.

But I know the dark longings that come from my ego — and I often have to remind myself who I am. And what my values are.

I crave attention. I lust for success. I want money and adulation from others. Despite the insecure parts of me which question my value, my ego secretly whispers that I deserve all these things. Deep down, I believe I’m great.

In such moments of weakness, I have to remind myself what matters.

Let me tell you about an artist who I admire greatly. There’s an excellent chance you’ve never heard of Steve Taylor. He was a brilliant rock musician in the 1980s and early ’90s whose music was aimed at the Christian market. He rocked hard. His lyrics were razor-sharp and witty. He mocked sacred cows inside the church and in modern culture, too.

Only a small group of weirdos in the church understood what he was doing. Most people were scandalized by him or simply didn’t understand what it was all about. I loved his work.

But when Taylor released his 1993 album called “Squint,” I had trouble understanding the intent of the very last song. It was unlike anything he had ever done. There were bits and pieces that I found funny. I felt as though he was saying something profound, but I didn’t get it.

The avant-garde animation that came out as a video for the song didn’t really help me understand. At least, not for a long time.

In fact, it wasn’t until I started seeing myself as an artist — instead of as a journalist or a businessman — that I finally understood.

He was saying something profound, but this time, he wasn’t satirizing the world. He wasn’t making fun of others. He was aiming his witty rhetorical barbs at himself. It was a rebuke to his ego. And I couldn’t understand what it really meant until I started experiencing similar ego trips.

I’ll embed the song below, but I’ll warn you that you probably won’t like it. It’s not something easy to understand. It’s not accessible to just anybody. Even for his fans, it was a head-scratcher, both the music and the meaning.

The song references the story of the ancient Israelites making a golden calf to worship instead of God. It uses some zingers which were relevant at the time — attacking a popular televangelist named Robert Tilton, for instance — but which wouldn’t make sense to most people today. The song sets itself up as a standard warning about not being seduced by the golden calf, which he called the Cash Cow.

But at the end of the Second Act, his words suddenly make it clear what he means:

Woe, woe, woe to you who blow off this warning
Perhaps you’ve already been licked
I, too, was hypnotized
By those big cow eyes
The last time I uttered
Those three little words
“I deserve better!”

There are times when I find myself bitterly disappointed that I haven’t had more success with my work. I try to act as though it doesn’t bother me. I try to make that true. But my ego tells me I’m great. My ego tells me others should recognize that I’m great — and that I should be more successful.

In those awful moments when the darkness inside my heart — the secret parts of my inflated ego — tell me these things, I can find myself uttering those three little words that Taylor warned me about.

“I deserve better.”

It’s very easy for me to believe I’ve done things that are worth more people reading or watching or listening to, even if I haven’t earned their notice. Even if I’ve been afraid to take the chances to show them what I can really do.

It’s easy to be bitter and to be envious of those who have had more success, especially those who pander to the crowds with terrible work that just tells people what they want to hear.

I had another of those moments tonight.

I didn’t feel appreciated. I didn’t feel as though I got the attention I deserved. I didn’t feel loved. I didn’t feel as though I was being praised in the ways that I should.

And it pierced my heart to realize I was doing it again. I was falling for the desire for something lower and more base and more dangerous than what I should be wanting. I wanted the love and adulation and praise and glory — and I wanted it so much in that moment that I wanted to go chase the Cash Cow.

I struggle with remaining true to myself but not falling into the dark pit where ego would pull me. I am naturally very ambitious. I am naturally very egotistical. I am naturally eager to believe that I deserve everything this world has to offer.

But I know that getting those things in the wrong ways would destroy me. Maybe I’m too weak to have the things I secretly crave anyway. Maybe I’m not strong enough to have the things which my flesh craves without allowing those things to own me.

I have to constantly remind myself who I really am. What I really believe in. What my values are. Which things matter to me in the end.

I don’t want to be seduced by the Cash Cow. I want to be true to my values.

But in order to do that, I have to live with humility. I have to make art with both confidence and humility. I have to accept whatever the world gives me, but I have to resist that dark part of my ego which points the way toward the evil Cash Cow and whispers to me, “I deserve better.”

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A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

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