Look at me

Ego isn’t just the Big Strut. According to the ancient enneagram, ego exhibits in nine different ways. In its most veiled manifestation, ego is shyness. Shyness courts attention in order to reject it.

Tricky

Ego is not a swollen arrogance, although it can be that. It can also be shyness—inviting attention in order to reject it. Ego is a trickster.

Indifference

Modesty is the grandest, most majestic of all the virtues. It is a being state. Specifically, it is the state of being indifferent to what other people think.

Modesty has never known nervousness, worry, stage fright or performance anxiety.

Modesty is not shyness. Shyness is needy, calculating, egoic. It seeks attention in order to reject it.

Modesty has never said, “I did this!”

Oh, modesty. Thy kingdom come. On earth as in heaven.