A Tale of Ego and Dishes
I thought I had it tamed, but I learnt the hard way I didn’t.
Discovering ego
A few years ago I moved into a flatshare, in a residential area of London. The flat was really nice and the flatmates were lovely. But something wasn’t quite right. The sink was often overloaded with dirty dishes, and the dishwasher was full and clean but no one would empty it. And it would drive me mad.
But also, there was this voice in my head.
“Hey, I’m not using the kitchen a lot, I’m always cleaning after myself, I’ve emptied the dishwasher 2 days ago, no one seems to care about this kitchen, so I’m not doing it again so soon. That will serve them.”
Yes, you’ve got that right, my ego was in the way, in a non-subtle manner. And to be fair, all of this WAS true. When I first arrived in the flat, the people there scared me and my social anxiety made that I would rather be in my room starving than use the kitchen and risk talking to them. And when I was using it, no one knew I was there because I was cleaning everything after myself. And I was emptying the dishwasher at least once a week.
