Is my ego fragile? You be the judge.
- Carson Speight
- Sep 30
- 4 min read

It was a warm night in August 2010, and I was nervously nursing a whiskey in the bowels of Charley Goodnight's Comedy Club.
I'd arrived early, hoping time and the Crown Royal would settle my nerves. I hadn't done this standup thing before.
I'd be going on stage within the hour.
I was participating in the “Triangle’s Funniest Accountant” contest, though I wasn’t an accountant and wasn’t sure yet if I was funny. I’d been practicing my routine for two months. Writing and editing my bits. Rehearsing in front of the mirror. Getting more nervous by the day.
When the day arrived, many of my family and friends were there to cheer me on and laugh at my jokes, regardless of how bad they were. As I sat backstage waiting to be introduced to a packed-out, 300-person comedy club, I was sure I’d never been so nervous. I had prepared, but how much can you really prepare for this kind of thing?
When my name was called, I jumped on stage and came out swinging. The first joke was calling out the obvious, that I was a man who had a baby face. I explained that people would tell me I’d appreciate having a baby face when I was older. But that I wouldn’t appreciate that at all because I’d be old and bald, and I would look like a baby. Good laughs, good start.
I transitioned to a joke about being carded and a joke about taking a breathalyzer when I’d had nothing to drink. More laughs, the train was a rollin'. And then, it wasn’t. I went blank.
I couldn't remember my next joke. I sucked in the empty air and stared out into bright lights and waiting faces. Nothing. After another second or two of awkward stillness, the crowd gave me applause to pep me back up. I pulled my notes out of my pocket to find the next joke. I put my notes back, kept going, and delivered the rest of the act without stumbling.
Still a pretty good night, right?
My ego and the night in retrospect
Since then and 15 years later, I've looked back on the time with mixed feelings. The good feeling, the one I prefer to stick with, is remembering that I faced my fears, did something few people get to do, and got a room full of people to laugh at my jokes. What a wonderful thing.
The bad feeling, which unfortunately is the one that persists and tends to dominate the memory, is forgetting my joke and everyone staring at me.
I wanted to have a perfect act. I wanted the perception of what I did to be a success. When it didn't work out that way, it sullied the memory.
Even today, deep in my psyche, I worry that I'll forget what I have to say when in front of a crowd, and feel that feeling again.
My perception, flawed and reforming
Today, I suspect my perception of that moment has been wrong for many years. I've made the experience black and white. Either it was good or it was bad. But that is solely my judgment, not rooted in any objective reality.
Who's to say it wasn't a good performance? Who's to say it was a disaster? It really doesn't matter. What matters was that I did it, and it was a life experience. Why judge it?
Because I have a fragile ego. That's why.
Our self-judgment spectrum
But I’m not the only one with a fragile ego. All of us have an ego, and thus, see ourselves in a certain light.
Where are you on the spectrum of how you see yourself and evaluating your actions?
Are you an extreme judge of yourself, making every moment a courtroom? Are you praising yourself for backing expertly into a parking space? Are you beating yourself up over burning your dumb toast?
Or are you no judge at all, doing whatever the heck you please with zero awareness or compunction? Are you throwing your banana peels in the recycling bin? Are you farting loudly in the grocery store?
Most of us are acutely aware of our actions and constantly judge them. We've been wired since we were children to mind our behavior. It's how we've survived socially and made friends.
We've come to love the back pats, the acknowledgment of getting it right. We've patted our own backs when no one else was watching. We've shunned our mistakes, looking for any way our weaknesses won't be found out.
And we're mentally exhausted by it. We're practically nauseous from this incessant seesaw of self-judgment. So what are we to do?
We have to consciously choose our judge.
Who's your judge?
There's a postmodern idea, championed by Friedrich Nietzsche, that we are the masters of our egos. A fragile ego, one that's influenced by external perspectives, is indeed weak and must be abandoned. Instead, one must elevate their ego and take pride in who they are, who they're becoming, and determine their own standards.
As we've seen, that mentality can get you ahead in the world. It can give you great power and success. Yet, when you answer to no one or nothing but yourself, it can crush the world around you. In the extreme, it can be a seed for genocide, like with Hitler and Stalin.
Having an elevated ego can also be too tall an order for some. It's difficult for the weak, poor, and marginalized to believe such a thing is even possible. Of course, the powerful take advantage.
There's an older idea, championed by men like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that God is the master of our egos. A fragile ego isn't only a sign of weakness, it's a symptom of mistrusting the Master. We've made our egos our center and made ourselves the judge. So every action is scrutinized, either assuaging our ego or assaulting it.
If you surrender your ego to the good Judge, you can stop keeping score. You don't have to inflate yourself with pride for a good deed or crush yourself for a mistake. Leave that to the Judge and when necessary, hand it over to Him in your heart. Over time, your looking outward will be much better for others and, naturally, yourself.
Still, probably best you don't throw banana peels in the recycling.