Self Help Relationships Question:
Is Huge Embellishment Ego Action?

by John
(New York, USA)

Paramedics NY

A Self Help Relationships Question.

I know a guy who always beefs up or embellishes every story that anyone tells him. I find this to be a bit frustrating and annoying. I really can’t understand why he does it. After reading this page about ego, I’m wondering if this guy’s embellishment is connected to his ego-self in some way.

Get this: one day I told this guy, who’s kind of a friend, that I’d just witnessed an accident between an automobile and a motorcycle and it looked to me as though one person was dead with a couple of people injured and one or two people were standing around or helping.

Later on that same day, I was with the guy again and some other friends. I was amazed as he proceeded to re-tell my story to the group, with his own huge embellishment added. And now, my story had several people dead with many injured, big crowds and flashing emergency services lights all around.

This guy had even forgotten or overlooked the fact that I was the one who told him the story in the first place. Is this connected to his ego? Why does he do it?

Frustrated Thanks,

John
New York, USA

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Thanks for your revealing story John.

Yes, your friend is most definitely functioning on the level of ego.

The ego can be very subtle. Anytime someone feels the need to embellish a story, especially when there’s an audience; they do so because in their mind, in their way of thinking, they believe that somehow they’re becoming more than they were before by bragging about this (amazing) story that they’d witnessed or heard about, before the other people in their audience.

It seems to me that your friend does not really love himself for whom and what he is and he lacks self confidence; even though the outward expression he portrays may be one of exaggerated self confidence. That’s why he needs an audience to bolster his internal lack of self love and self confidence; it’s a mask he wears to cover his feelings of sorrow.

The truth is that your friend is not alone in his way of being. There are many people who live by these kinds of actions their entire life. They can’t seem to break free of the emptiness and loneliness that they feel inside. Unfortunately, I’ve found from experience that it’s quite difficult to get through, even a little bit, to those who’re controlled by their ego-self.

That’s why it’s better to take care of ourselves and work on the awareness of the action of our own mind, in order to achieve greater clarity in our relationships.

As an aside, I can feel the frustration in your words and I have to leave you by asking: what is it in you that feels annoyed and frustrated?

Eddie