Fragile Ego

I was given a new assignment and reported to my new work center with anticipation of a different perspective of ministry, outreach and opportunity. I was hit, instead, with a dose of reality. I was accused, belittled, and made to feel severely "inferior." Sadly, that was just the first day at work! WOW...our first meeting together. What I thought would be a "welcome" speech turned out to be a "this is the way it is around here" directive so that I understood very clearly that I was "at the bottom of the totum pole." Yikes!! He definitely wasn't the "welcome wagon." Sadly, over the course of the last two months, I have found that it's not just my new boss who is "sensitive" but some of my colleagues as well. What is this I'm talking about? I'm talking about fragile ego. Fragile ego is when a person "over-reacts" as if everything you do is purposely orchestrated as a threat to their career, themselves, and/or their livlihood...maybe even an attempt to "upstage" them to make them look bad in the eyes of the boss. To "protect" themselves they not only give you the cold-shoulder throughout the course of the week, but find ways to interject degrading, cutting, and demeaning "responses" to the ideas, input and contributions you make. You know...they always have to say something negative to make it look as if what you said was the stupidest thing every uttered in the history of the world. They are hard to deal with when they are "jerks" on purpose. I found an interesting saying from Mother Teresa that could help us when we work and live with these mentally immature, ego-protective individuals. My wife found it...of all places...in a CBD catalog. It said, "People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best nayway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It never was between you and them anyway." Yes, love is patient, kind...and not easily offended. May we all strive to have BIG hearts and thick skins. After all, it was never supposed to be about me in the first place.