The Difference Between Arrogance and Ego

This will be relatively short by my standards, methinks. It's an idea that just popped into my head a few days ago and I wanted to get it down while it was still fresh. I've wondered a lot over the years about where the fine line is between arrogance and ego. I believe in my skills, so does that make me arrogant? I used to think so, but then I watched all of those superstars accepting awards and adding the obligatory words of self deprecation, and found myself thinking, "what, did you just win the cosmic lottery? Did you not work extemely hard to hone those skills? Did you not make great sacrifices and slave away at crap jopbs, paying your dues along the way, all in effort to make it to that podium? Take some credit for it! Don't pretend you just got lucky, you liar!" False humility is so annoying to me, because it not only denies the speaker the credit he/she is due, but it creates an erroneous belief that the best among us just got lucky breaks, or that God loves them more than the rest of us, or that excellence is in no way connected to effort. So, I wanted to reject false humility, but not cross the line into outright arrogance. So where is that line? This is why I have pondered it, and this is what suddenly occurred to me the other day.

The whole consideration is moot, because there is no line.

Follow: to say there is a line between X and Y is to imply that X and Y are very similar, and that the gradation between them is hard to spot. The difference between arrogance and ego, however, is not fine. They are not even remotely similar. They only look somewhat similar on the surface, at least to a simple-minded observer. At their core, they are as different as night and day. In a nutshell, here is why: arrogance is bred out of insecurity, ego grows out of confidence. When you remember the source, suddenly they don't seem very similar at all. Arrogance is someone who doesn't believe in their worth pretending that they do, trying to fool the rest of the world into thinking they are better than they really are. Ego is someone who is utterly convinced of their worth, at least in some area or skillset, and who is operating out of that confidence. Arrogance is pointed outwards and is a mask; ego is pointed inwards and is a spotlight.

I came up with this analogy, and I like it. Arrogance is like someone who paints the outside of their house to look like a mansion. They go to such great lengths to perfect the illusion that they completely neglect the interior of their house, allowing it to fall into disrepair and ruin. Ego is like someone who forgets to mow their lawn or weed the flowerbeds because they are too busy renovating the inside of their house, strengthening it, painting and refurbishing, decorating and cleaning, making it exactly the sort of house they want to live in, and knowing they have the skills to do it. The arrogant homeowner only cares what the neighbors think. The confident homeowner, secure in his ego, only cares about what he or she thinks.

It's probably not a perfect analogy, but I'm working on it. I guess the most important thing to remember is that both the arrogant and the ego fail out of pride-- the arrogant out of its lack, and the ego out of its excess. Fair enough?