Ego-Driven Ones
Because ego-driven Ones find or create a set of principles, rules, or religious or philosophical precepts that they then internalize, they set very high standards for themselves and often feel anxious and guilty when they fail to meet their own ideals. They judge themselves and others, acting as if they are morally superior and therefore know how everyone should behave. When people inevitably fail to live an exemplary life, idealistic Ones often feel as if they alone carry the burden of preserving the world.
Ego-driven Ones develop a kind of watchdog superiority complex. They use rigid rules to hold themselves — and everyone else — to high standards and then constantly strive for perfection in everything they do, berating themselves when they fall short. They need to feel like they've got it all together. They spend a lot of time mentally comparing what they have, what they accomplished, or what they are to what others have, what others accomplished, or what others are. Even in normal conversation, they often sound as if they are preaching or moralizing.
Ego-driven Ones get so entrenched with being perfect that they start to believe they know better than anyone how things should operate. And they don't hesitate to let everyone know. They eagerly climb onto soapboxes for everything from the proper use of car seats to the moral imperatives of stem cell research. Ego-driven Ones develop purposeful agendas, don't believe in wasting time, and are always creating new and loftier goals. Because they like belonging to a structured group with principles they can trumpet, they are particularly drawn toward political or religious activism.
The real trouble starts when Ones become so rigid they can't withstand losing face. They are afraid to fail, or to appear less than perfect, so they tighten their grip on propriety. Their neat, methodical ways increasingly become regimented; they tend to judge themselves — and others — in black and white, right or wrong, and good or bad categories. Since they can't waste time, they feel compelled to order their lives and everything in it, rating activities, people, and events in terms of what is most worthy of their time and effort.
If normal coping mechanisms stop working, they cling even tighter to their rules and become agitated when you question what they are doing. When out of balance, their need for order often becomes compulsive — they insist that everything is neat, organized, and hyper efficient. The more they cling even tighter to rigid moral or religious principles, the more intimacy becomes a high-risk endeavor — sexual urges threaten their own image of themselves as morally superior and pure.
Ego-driven Ones are compulsively neat and organized. They are compulsive about punctuality, appearances, and what one should do. They tend to criticize everyone, but they are hardest on themselves. Convinced they know more than you, Ones love to debate issues. They have something — a religion, a philosophy, a government — they believe in so strongly they are always searching for recruits or converts. They tend toward black-and-white thinking.
Ego-driven Ones under pressure frequently lose touch with what was once their gentle, loving inner guide, superego, or internalized principles. As their need for order heightens, or when they feel pressured or out of control, they often become harsh, demanding taskmasters. They are so focused on order and correctness, they become unglued if things get messy in their environments — at the workplace, in their families, or in their own minds — and may dump a barrage of insults on anyone whom they perceive as the root of the problem, even when it's clearly a projection of their own failings.
Their conscientious habits have morphed into compulsions that turned them into workaholics, perfectionists, and nitpickers who judge others harshly for what they see as fallible behavior — even when it's a minor transgression. Feeling both internal and external pressure, they counteract by becoming impatient, hypercritical, controlling browbeaters. Unable to withstand, let alone admit, a breech in their own high standards, they hide their feelings and attempt to repress their physical desires, succumbing to puritanical, fastidious, and pedantic attitudes and behaviors.
