Being neutral is nothing more nor less than compassionate wisdom. All wisdom is compassionate, or it would not be wisdom.
Does taking things personally mean ego? I would say so. Part of taking personally is the thought: "How can they talk to me this way? Who do they think they are? Who do they think I am?" Yes, that looks like ego to Me.
Without ego interference, the thought more likely will be: "What's really going on here? And how do we progress from it?"
And always the answer is love, not ballooned love, but love as a willingness to understand and go on from there.
Ego has a very short vibration. No matter how virtuous, it jangles. When you feel upset, no matter how justified, ego is at play. When there is no individual to see as the cause and toblame, then it is life you take offense at. The thought may be: "How can this happen to me?"
Or you take offense with Me and think, "How could God allow this?"
And you come to the conclusion that you are not loved and never were, and you won't love anymore either. Do you not think that the price for a fragile ego is too high?
Even so, there will come a time when you recognize that nothing does indeed happen to you. You move through waters, that's all. Sometimes the waters are stormy and sometimes they're mild. Sometimes they buoy you, and sometimes they tow you under. Sometimes they lift you high as if spiraling you to Heaven, and sometimes they let you drift to the shoals. No matter, the waters are just something you are passing through. You do not take the tides personally. They are not out to get you. They simply are what they are when they are what they are. You are party to the waves, but you are irrespective of them.
You may see yourself as a leaf in the water. But, of course, you are not a leaf in the water. If you want to make a nature comparison, then compare yourself to a lotus flower who grows and blooms in water. Beautiful beings as they are, you are not leaf nor lotus flower. You are Human Being.
You are not so dependent upon the currents. You need not sink with them nor soar from them. The currents are not the making of you.
In the same fashion, others' thoughts are not the making of you. Why does it matter so much what someone else thinks? Why do you go out of your way to curry appreciation from another? Let you be the appreciator of another. What you think matters. What someone else thinks is irrelevant. Only you make it relevant because of your emphasis on seeking love and good opinion of yourself. But even favorable thoughts and agreement do not make you beloved. Thoughts change just like the currents of the waters, and you are left high and dry. It is well-established that you cannot live your life dependent upon what others think of you.
But have you not been doing this? Have not your spirits been wafted and blown according to the temperaments around you? Have you not seen yourself like the mere coins in your pockets, jangled, a transaction, expenditure or purchase, bought or sold, passed from hand to hand, dependent upon a flickering market price for your value?
Stay with a stable investment. Your value does not fluctuate according to the weather. Invest in love. Incur love. Let love alone have dominion over you.