Thank you for your comment. I agree with you about the need to let go of ego. I think that too often though, Western people conflate ego and self.

Like you wisely point out, we can attach ourselves to a particular thought of who we are. That is what I call ego. When we cling to a particular definition of who we are (obsessing as you say), we concretize an artificial version of self when we should recognize that we are constantly flowing and changing. Our self, our beingness, is beneath all of the labels and attachments we find arise in daily life.

As for Schopenhauer, he brings up a vital distinction between acts and what lies behind acts. Some philosophers agree with him that we act freely from our choices but that what we will choose is predetermined--"cannot will what he wills." I think we can freely will what we will, but that we too often surrender that power to expediency. We go along with the easy, unthinking path. But we can decide to reflect and choose what we will and then what part of our will on which to act.

Finding our self underneath the everyday life and making choices (to both will and act) that reflect who we are, is the central thread of a spiritual path. Some schools of spirituality, including Buddhism, do teach that.