With youth: Will egolessness make me worthless?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): If we do not have Ego, we will not have any goals in life, and such a life would be worthless, isn’t it?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Mark the words, ‘we’, ‘have’, ‘ego’, ‘goals’, ‘worthless’. If we understand the question properly, clarity would be there. The question itself is the answer. The clarity lies in understanding the question. For me to say that I have this pen, there is a prerequisite. What is that? There must be a ‘me’ and there must be a ‘pen’. There ought to be two entities to say this. For me to say that I have an Ego, requires two entities- ‘Me’ and ‘Ego’. The question then arises, ‘am I anything apart from my Ego?’ To say that there is an ‘I’ and there is an ‘Ego’, I must be separate from Ego. But am I really separate from Ego?

Listener (L): No, Sir.

AP: So first of all, it is not very accurately worded when you say, ‘I have an Ego’. We do not have Ego. We are Ego. In order to understand Ego, we first have to understand ourselves as something apart from the Ego. When you are angry, do you understand yourself as something separate from the anger? No. You are anger. When the body gets hurt, do you say that ‘the leg’ is paining?