You do admit to having ego, don’t you? Yet if I were to offer you help in removing your ego, you might choose not to have it removed. You might suspect that, if I helped, this would mean extra pain for you. There is a tendency for you, My children, to focus on other people’s abundance of ego rather than on your own.

You might as well know that with or without your request, reduction of ego is going to take place. The idea of seeing your twittery ego in front of you is painful. Beloveds, life on Earth seems to be about taming your rampant ego. With or without your request for ego-reduction, ego will show itself to you and fight to the end.

You have an intention for a happier life. I respond to intention. One of the ways for you to be happier is for your ego to get out of the way, yours and others’.

See about accepting so-called others as they are without resentment. The same as you are, they are trying to make their way in the world. All of you pass out of this world. Everyone is learning. Why resent and fuss? How valuable really are your hurt feelings? Sometimes it is like you chew on a cud of your aggravation.

Why do you aggravate over what is temporary?

Here’s the answer:

You aggravate over what is temporary so you will learn that it is pointless to do so, and so that you can stop fussing and fuming.

If you really want to stop, why don’t you? Why does anything offend you or put you off or make you unhappy or exhilarated even?

You have heard of equanimity, yet you are up and down and back and forth, up and down and back and forth. You have your work cut out for you, beloveds.

Why not just enjoy everything, even the aggravation? Your dependence upon aggravation keeps you entertained! Else, why would you stay aggravated? Ironically, perhaps because of your dependency upon being annoyed by not being valued enough.

As near and as dear as you are to Me, and I am to you, you nevertheless seem to like emotions all over the place. I know you think anguish comes from outside, yet you must admit that you are party to it. When you react, you are party to it. If you receive offense and hold it to you, you are receiving it and holding it to you.

If you are outside on the grass and under a tree, and bird droppings fall on you, do you take this personally? You don’t think the bird went out of its way to target you, do you? The bird is just being a bird. Nor is it that you solicited the bird. You are aware that the bird happened to be up in the tree, and you happened to be under the tree.

You may have been offended ten times, let’s say. When We add up all the times you’ve gone over the specific offenses in your mind about who snubbed you, who picked on you, who didn’t like you - and you innocently don’t know why – the offenses may add up to a hundred or more! Often, you are relentless in your reproach, silent or vocal.

With the bird, you get over it and sit somewhere else.

When it comes to people who hurt your feelings, by sitting somewhere else, I don’t mean that you leave your job or move out of your house. I mean you rise higher in your consciousness. What else can you do? It’s unlikely you will change someone else.

You are not responsible for someone else’s attitude, even when someone sees you as offensive or bothersome. You can only be responsible for your own responses. As you change on the silent levels, however, the change in you may be picked up by the other person, and the other person may no longer seem offensive or bothersome to you.

On the deepest subtle level, you are responsible for now. Certainly, you agree that you are responsible for yourself. Whatever someone else does or does not do, you are certainly responsible for yourself.