On the my Ego Orgasm blog [defunct], I posted this definition last November:
An ego orgasm is whatever I do or happens in life that I think gives me a psychological boost but that turns out to be false. Mistaken. Often times destructive. And once it’s over, unless I see the mistaken thinking behind it, the hunger for another one quickly returns.
Here’s Eckhart Tolle’s definition of ego in his book, The Power of Now:
As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phanton self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through continuous thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.
To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it — who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: “One day, when this, that or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace.” – Eckhart Tolle
The “seek some kind of release or fulfillment” in the future that he describes is the orgasm that seems to be tripping me up most of the time. Current example: “When my knee heals and I return to racquetball and trials, THEN I’ll really be…” What? Somebody! Oy. Whoever that ‘somebody’ is must be rooted in my past, and I’m trying to keep it alive with this mistaken thinking about the future.