Ego takes us out of present moment living

Did any of you see the Oprah Life Class on Monday night?
I was so overwhelmed by the class that it has taken me over a day to process it. Basically the class was all about pushing our egos aside in order to allow our authentic selves through. Not treating our ego as the enemy. Not fighting it. Just acknowledging it for what it is. I found this very deep and a bit confusing. So I gave myself some time to understand the concept.
Thinking back, the class was powerful particularly when Eckhart Tolle said, “Ego looks to the future to be fulfilled. Ego is afraid of the future because it knows that eventually the future will kill it. The solution to killing the ego is present moment living.”
Instead of projecting into the future we should be living in the moment, appreciating and learning from every event that is presently happening in our lives. I interpret this to mean living presently is the only way we can stop ego from ruling our lives. Ego is what makes us afraid, apprehensive, and insecure because it forces us to worry about what has not yet happened.
I think back to an event that happened to my children and me at JFK airport this summer. We were trying to escape the dreaded hurricane that turned into a tropical storm so the airport was like a zoo. We were ushered through check in because we were flying Jet Blue and were very close to their one hour minimum check in time. I was in a frenzy because I had made a last minute decision to shorten our vacation so I was not thinking straight.
Once we finished with check in, we rushed to security and for those of you who have gone through security at Jet Blue you know how long those lines can be. There was a security guard directing people where to go and I mistakenly thought he told us to go to the right so I followed his directions. There was a woman with her three friends who looked at me with disdain then looked at her friends then said to me, “The line is over here.”She proceeded to push in front of us, moving us out of their way. I realised she thought we were trying to cut in front of her.
At first I was irate that she was being so aggressive but then I released my feeling when I saw how stunned my children were. They looked to me for guidance. I told them not to worry about it as she was probably having a bad day.
As soon as I released my ego, a security guard came over and broke the line in front of us and moved us to a newly opened security check in. Miraculously, we ended up not only in front of the woman who had insisted we get behind her, but at the head of a new line. I could see the shocked look on the woman’s face in my peripheral vision. But I made a decision to avoid eye contact with her because I did not want to look like I was gloating. I also wanted to teach my children a lesson from the experience.
Once we were out of ear shot of the woman, I explained to my children that sometimes it’s not worth getting into a fight because just as she was trying to establish authority over us through her ego, she ended up losing out on an opportunity to get to the front of the line.
Ego is one of our greatest life hinders but as Eckhart Tolle says do not make it our enemy either because then it grows into something much larger. What we must accept and acknowledge is that “Ego is merely a misperception of who we truly are.”