It's amazing how alike two people can be.

You go on a ego trip, boosted by all the awesome response your work brings in for you day in and out. You puff out our chest till it is ready to explode because people tell you work won't happen without you. All the praise, the thank you's and "amazings" make you believe that you are the best. You know everything that there is to know. You become a bitch, snapping at people because they just won't understand, criticizing everybody under the sun because they don't know what's right. You believe you know best.

There is a small voice within you that tells you to rise above the madness, to keep your feet on the ground and your head screwed firmly onto your shoulders, you ignore it, you tell yourself that it is self doubt.

You explode everytime anybody tells you that you may not always be right. You boss people around, irrespective of how deserving they may be of your respect  or at least basic civility.

You sense relationships growing distant, you feel the tension in interactions with people who used to be your friends, mentors …

The ignorant know all that you are, you do not realize that it is not they who have changed but you, it is not they who have sprouted wings but your own ego.

Then all of a sudden, one fine day during a phone conversation, you decide to give in, more out of condescension than humility….

And things change, just like that…

You can feel the tension evaporate, the disagreements getting resolved, conversation flowing like before.

And then realization dawns or crashes like a tsunami, drowning you and carrying you along with the swell. You realize what a monster you had become, how ignorant you were.

You are left damp with shame and humility, the bubble has been burst and just as you wonder how you are ever going to make up for all the bad behavior, the phone rings again.

The person on the other end wants to know something, he is willing to admit there are things he doesn’t know…

You are not the only one, you learn, the world is full of egoistical fools like you, each waiting for the person next to him to give in to give in himself.