Ego Scooby Snacks
I need to go on a diet. I have been munching on too many snacks. But not anything like cakes or cookies. The snacks I’m talking about are snacks for my ego. Ego Scooby Snacks, as I like to call them.
Ego Scooby Snacks are identity reinforcers. They build up the image of how we want to be perceived by others and ourselves.
Ego Scooby Snacks come in many different flavors. They range from obvious acts of self-promotion to much more subtle behaviors. Examples include:
Casually name-dropping an important person or a company who is interested in working with me
Adjusting the placement of my art so that it can be more easily seen before a group of friends comes over
Working an extra two hours at night even though I’m exhausted and it’s not really necessary just so I can feel productive
Apologizing for something I’m not sorry for
Reading books or watching movies so that I can teach others about them or tell others that I completed them
Stumbling over my words after someone gives me a compliment because I am trying to be modest
Checking my brokerage account more times than is necessary
Wearing luxury items to reinforce my sense of taste or my ability to afford something
Spending three hours organizing my closets
Checking email constantly when I am expecting good news
Exaggerating stories in slight ways way that make me look better
Using essential oils just because I want to be that kind of person, rather than because of a real conviction
Asking more people than is necessary for advice to have my decisions and thought processes re-affirmed
Going to a cool event because I don’t want to be the person that didn’t go to the event
Engaging in superficial chit-chat rather than having a hard conversation with the person I know I should have it with
Traveling to exotic places so that I can be the type of person who travels to exotic places
If you were wondering, these are all autobiographical.
Ego Scooby Snacks are not just actions. They can also manifest as internal thoughts that reinforce our egos. Things like:
Ruminating on how my lifestyle choices make me special
Basking in the glory of my humility
Rehearsing in my mind how I will share my impressive achievements
Mentally rejecting criticism because I convince myself the other person is envious or not intelligent
Also, all autobiographical.
The term Scooby Snacks is, of course, in reference to the TV series Scooby-Doo in which the characters Fred, Daphne, and Velma would try to entice Scooby-Doo and Shaggy with biscuits to get over their fears in order to solve mysteries.
Unlike the original Scooby Snacks, Ego Scooby Snacks are tempting us to play into our fears. They are the things we do or think in order to help us feel enough, but the problem is that they don’t satiate us in any real way. They are like artificial sweeteners or refined carbohydrates or fast food that might give us a temporary feeling of satisfaction, but can make us feel bad as soon as the satisfaction wears off and can cause more serious consequences in the long run.
Munching on Ego Scooby Snacks doesn’t mean that we are wrong or bad. Just like eating cookies won’t give us a heart attack. At least not in the short run.
The problem with Ego Scooby Snacks is that we are rarely aware that we are eating them, and they are not beneficial for us if our goal is becoming the best version of ourselves. They divert our attention from our true values and goals. Eating Ego Scooby Snacks entangles us in the game of the ego. We are trying to feel enough, but in fact, they only make the fear of not being enough worse because we are playing into the fear. We are giving oxygen to the fear and developing coping mechanisms that don’t address the fear.
It is a term I often use in my coaching practice to help my clients self-identify behaviors that may be ensnaring them in the ego.
If you, too, need to wean yourself off Scooby Snacks, then what to do?
The first step, as always, is to develop awareness. Check in with yourself. What am I really up to here? What is my real motivation? Depending on what you discover, it may be helpful to say out loud, I’m having a craving for an Ego Scooby Snack, or I just pigged out on some Ego Scooby Snacks.
In the example of me compulsively checking email that I shared above, I have become more aware that my real motivation for the compulsion is to feel valuable. When I get an email that a new client wants to work with me or when I immediately respond to an incoming request, I get a “hit” of worth.
Next, you’ll want to see how the Scooby Snack is getting in the way of the type of person you actually want to be. Who do I want to become, and how is this in opposition to that?
With the email example, I don’t want to be so dependent on and desperate for external validation to feel valuable. I also don’t want to be someone who always prioritizes work and who is always on his laptop. My journey of growth is toward someone who can more easily and gracefully tolerate times when there is a lull in external validation and who strikes a better balance between being responsive to my professional responsibilities and spending time nourishing my inner self and family.
You’ll then want to decide how you want to act. Do I really need to eat the Scooby Snack? Or if you’ve already eaten it, what will I commit to doing next time a similar situation presents itself?
I have a long way to go, but I have committed to resisting the temptation to check email in certain situations where the compulsion gets in the way of my presence with others, and I have become more disciplined in doing daily practices that are nourishing and don’t involve any interaction with email.
And finally, over time, you’ll develop a “higher taste.”
I’ve seen myself develop a higher taste when it comes to my travel choices. Throughout my 20s and into my early 30s, I was obsessed with traveling to as many countries as I could possibly get to. In extreme cases, I would go to a country just for two days to say I’d been there. I even had a travel app that I would excitedly update when I stepped foot into a place that kept count of everywhere I had been. These travel experiences no doubt expanded my understanding of the world and myself, opened my mind to different ways of life, and were a lot of fun, but they were largely based in ego because a big part of my motivation was proving my value as an interesting and worldly person who would be admired for the number of stamps on his passport. As my tastes have shifted, I’ve become a lot hungrier for immersive experiences that are meant to help me explore what is underneath the ego and directly connect me with a more authentic version of myself. This has meant more retreats, a lot less moving around, and fewer Ego Scooby Snacks of traveling to new countries just so I can update the country count on my travel app. I don’t know that I’ll ever lose my attraction to globetrotting, but over the last few years, my higher taste has meant a meaningful shift in behavior without it feeling like a sacrifice.
With my email compulsion, I have more of a ways to go before the higher taste of discipline and nourishing practices are more tempting than the compulsion, but I eagerly look forward to getting to a place in my life when I can go an entire weekend without checking email, without it feeling like a sacrifice.
This last stage, the higher taste, is a key teaching from the Bhagavad-Gita, a sacred text from ancient India. The main speaker of the story, Krishna, tells the protagonist Arjuna that when one experiences a higher spiritual taste, the person will naturally lose interest in lower, materialistic sense gratifications. In other words, when we get the taste for something greater than the ego, we no longer feel tempted to reach into the Ego Scooby Snack cookie jar.
Developing a higher taste is indicative of a higher level of consciousness. It is the most rewarding way to live because we genuinely feel pulled towards where we are going. As my partner Vipin has articulated, we go from “I should do this” to “I get to do this.” “I should do this” is certainly a central part of the growth process because the death of the ego never comes without resistance, but when we reach the level of “I get to do this,” that’s when we really hit escape velocity with our personal and spiritual growth.
There is a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that we share in our Upbuild “The Call to Awaken” course that has been on my mind a lot recently:
Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
Becoming aware of and choosing not to indulge in Ego Scooby Snacks is about sowing the thoughts, actions, and habits that will lead us to having a character, and ultimately, a destiny more and more aligned with the best version of ourselves, our real selves.
