Is Pride a Bad Thing?
20 February 2007[Words: 846, Reading Time: ~4mins]
Is Pride a Bad Thing? Hell no!
First of all, feeling proud of yourself is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Your pride helps bolster all other aspects of your confidence, and radiates outward to inspire others.
Think for a moment what the opposite of pride is? It’s shame. I don’t think anyone for a second would believe that shame is a good thing. So if shame is bad, then pride is good. I understand this is very simple reasoning but it should serve to get the point across. Self admiration negates shame, as it’s very hard, if not impossible, to feel ashamed of yourself at the same time you’re feeling proud.
What emotions are healthy to feel about another person: love, acceptance, etc? Is it considered healthy to be proud of someone, to admire them? Of course it is? Then why would it be a bad thing to admire yourself?
Pride requires a lot of self knowledge. Not just in the sense of what you do and who you are, but it also means being in touch with your states and emotions so you can feel that sense of deep inner satisfaction. Again gaining self knowledge is considered a noble and worthy pursuit. Being connected with your emotions, particularly being able to generate and get in touch with positive and empowering ones such as satisfaction is a truly wonderful gift you can give to yourself.
So why do we feel conditioned that pride is a bad thing? This happens when you confuse pride with egotism. It’s expressions like “don’t let your pride get in the way†that give pride it’s negative connotations. Let’s take a look at what pride isn’t.
Pride isn’t egotism or cockiness. Egotism is a psychologically immature way to protect our self image from damage. It’s a way of lying to ourselves.
One could argue that we are always lying to ourselves, since we can never fully know the truth. There is a difference between chosing to interpret events a certain way(your belief system) and egotism. With egotism, there’s the knowledge that you’re lying to yourself, and the fear that someone will see through your façade and that the ‘real you’ is quite scared and not as confident as you’d like to be.
Cockiness is the McDonald’s of confidence, in that it’s all bright lights and fluff, with no substance. Cockiness/arrogance is a public brave front that falls down very quickly if scrutinized or attacked.
If you think about it, if you were (are!) perfectly confident would you find yourself needing to be arrogant? I believe you’d actually be more compassionate and giving. After all, you have all the acceptance, love, esteem, determinism, respect, belief, assurance and admiration you needed, you wouldn’t brag about these things in public, but rather actively help other people develop their own confidence.
To get over the guilt of pride think in terms of admiration. In fact, one reason I use the term admiration is it manages to bypass any negative feelings/guilt that can come with guilt. Who do you admire? People who are dedicated. People who make you smile. People who give of themselves and go the extra mile.
Are you proud of, or do you admire, people who are arrogant and cocky without any substance or sincerity? Of course not. And those people who you admire, would it be wrong if they took pride in their accomplishments and the effect they have on those around them? More than likely you wish they’d take more pride in who they are and what they’ve done, since you admire them so much.
Which raises an interesting point in that the people you admire you tend to feel they should have a richer view of themselves. If you can clearly see their value, you’d like them to. So to look at this through the mirror, other people clearly see and feel the effect you have on the world, and would like you to take more pride in who you are. So take more pride in who you are.
Whenever we praise another there is a tendency to brush it off as nothing special. It can sometimes frustrate us when someone doesn’t acknowledge the good thing they did or the positive effect they have on people. What we can do is acknowledge and take pride in the fact that we’re having a positive effect on those around us.
The last objection I hear people saying when I ask them to take more pride in who they are is they feel they’ve nothing to be proud of. I keep repeating this because once you realize this truth it’s immensely liberating. The greatest contribution you give to anyone isn’t in what you do, it’s in who you are. Your very essence is worth feeling proud about!
If you dwell on nothing else other than the fact (and it is a fact) that you enrich people’s lives merely by existing you’re inner satisfaction will explode and you’ll further enrich everyone around you.
Let me know how you get on.
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