Ego

I was reading "Still Here"  by Ram Dass this morning and came across this section about Ego.  I think that the ego has gotten a bad rap because we just don't understand it.  To me it is part of what makes us a complete person.  It is when it is untamed and controling that creates the problem.  See what you think.
"The wisdom of age is more a matter of being than of role playing.  It's not a matter of trying to fulfill a social role; it's a matter of becoming wisdom itself.  Yes, it is a role for the Ego to play, but here we need a deeper understanding of the Ego. The Ego is the program that runs personality, the body, and interactions with others on the physical plane.  It can be a very useful tool.  The Ego only becomes destructive when a person identifies the Ego as her or his whole being.  That brings tremendous suffering, because the Ego is full of desires the fulfillment of which will never bring lasting happiness.  Such a person becomes trapped in time and desires.  If you take the perspective of the Ego, then there is suffering as the Ego struggles to preserve its identity in the face of the Soul's desire to merge with God.  I tried to go the renunciate's way, to forget the needs of the body in order to avoid the suffering of the Ego.  But the Soul depends on the Ego's drama for its teachings.  We have to be in the world to learn from it."  (Still Here by Ram Dass)