Be your true self

Ego is the false self wanting a throne

It is developed early on during infancy as the cry for attention.  It is the dishonest turn of self-preservation instinct for mere self-gratification.  It is a distortion and a revelation of the capacity for the capable mind to bend over backwards for something small-minded.  Some of this capacity is developed in the womb.  A killer of sorts, deliberately eliminating competition, one way or another for that standing one, egotists become at best careless and therefore often destructive in their efforts.