If You Have Ego to Burn ...

I work as a strategist in the financial industry and I found for myself that this happens to be a great environment to burn ego. There are two ways to burn ego. You can do it by putting your staff into the ground and scream "I want it thus!", or you can follow the cues of the Tao and position yourself around it, riding the eternal waves up or down like a skillful surfer without ever really getting wet. The former strategy you can do if you happen to be Moses, the latter strategy will always work independent of your spiritual advancement level.

Observing the Tao is a handful. Countless voices want to be heard and they all are important pieces in the puzzles. Some turn out to be wrong, or early, some turn out to be right despite being highly unpopular and you never know in advance who will be. Still, you have a hunch when you make your decision that you will be right picking the winning horse as long as you truly appreciate every input. 

The Tao Master never knows whether she will be right with her hunches, though she does know that she will be right in 99 percent of the cases and in the 1 percent where she is off she either learns something from her mistake, or she will see her effectiveness rise even further because of the mistake.

I have chosen my profession, or rather my profession has chosen me, because you can never be arrogant doing what I am doing. I am burning off ego, but never by going against anyone. I know that without my many friends at work I am a nobody - at least in the investment world. It is remarkably refreshing to get to that stage. If you have ego to burn, you may as well do it in accordance with the Tao. It is as much fun as surfing in the Pacific Ocean on a hot but windy day.Try it!