Well, dear @akkar, no doubt that this is indeed very subjective. From my personal perspective, I try to observe and “measure” those criteria:
- How often do I get offended?
- How often do I see my opinion, choices, etc. like “superior” (lol) or better than another person’s?
- How often do I feel threatened, discriminated, rejected, misunderstood?
(Edit: How often do I look for superficial gratifications?)
etc.
You know the song. So 2-3 days is, for me, generally a length when I’m more like chilling and being carefree lol. Again, it’s very subjective… just like the ego.
Besides, some other things may have helped me, like Jungian therapy. But I’m talking about a more weird version of it.
For example, we spent years with my colleagues in a training, and during some sessions, we had to wear masks. Any kind of mask: Pulcinella, bear, Darth Vador… (Edit 2: Vader. My apologies to the Lord ) or even masks that we were designing by ourselves.
Sounds like a carnival, I know lol (but the deeper dynamics of carnivals obey to a similar logic, after all).
So, we were hanging around in the therapy room, with our masks. No need to say how stupid we felt at the beginning
But as time went by, we found out that this technique was veeeeery efficient to bypass the ego and let the true self arise. As well as other Jungian archetypes that we are supposed to have inside: the Shadow, etc.
Conclusion: any kind of battle against the ego worths the pain lol.