THEY are all around us, especially in politics. The polarization of the pros and antis have spawned a rabid following and anti-following. The noisy few who still want to drum up an administration that has failed to fulfill or complete its promises are waiting in the wings, ready to swoop down on any project that has finally been completed under the Duterte Administration but was thought of or launched in the Aquino Administration.

The self-righteousness of them all has become very predictable.

Sad to say, while they are the rabid ones, there are the more quiet credit-grabbers that dwell within and among us.

Like an executive who is drowned with the seemingly endless flow of errors, miscalculations, and dire lack of due diligence sends out a loud SOS. But when things start to smoothen out through actions set up in response, gone is the desperate executive, and in his stead is the ego that believes he did it all by himself; that he is the only person who knows it all.

Many among us are stricken with such forgetfulness. The credit-grabbing may not be outright as in politics, but the actions are there.

The pride of long ago is back with vengeance, and the person doesn’t care who gets run over by the ego.

But to tame the ego needs a deliberate resolution to change that very few will ever take. The desire to strut one’s wares, one’s expertise, and rule over others is difficult to tamp down especially in a world that tells us, “If you have it, flaunt it.”

In this world, humility is only appreciated when declared, which by itself negates the humility, but that’s how we have defined our world.

That’s why it’s highly recommended to have an alter-world. A world we have all to ourselves, where we develop our characters, our skills, and our beings just for the self. There’s the self for show and then there’s the real self.

But why not just have one? In an ideal world, having just one self – a real one – is the best way to be. In the world we live in, there are dictates of the society that we have to compromise with or things we just have to swallow even if we hate to, and the self that does not hit out as hard as we would have wanted to. We leave all that to the public self. The private self is where we develop everything that is good and tame that desire to kill.

In that private world, we too can build our confidence and strength to be who we are, and when the private is strong enough, then it takes over the public and just let the world try to catch up.

I observe that in the President. He no longer cares what his detractors say. He does not even bother about his image. He knows he has a job to do and he intends to deliver. The unevolved journalists can just report on and agonize over his outrageous and unbelievable statements, never realizing and understanding that while they are doing so, the President is off to another job to do.

A close cousin of the credit-grabber is the ego who believes only he holds the truth. That is the state of many, journalists, antagonists, and people who were able to accomplish something in their younger years but cannot move on and would want everyone within hearing distance to hear of those glory years over and over again even when history has already shown, their ideas are no longer valid and their glory days are long over.

It takes wisdom to identify and accept mistakes of the past, and wisdom can only come with age that is not biological.