The many faces of pride.

What is pride? According to dictionary, Pride is an inwardly directed emotion that carries two common meanings - negative and positive connotation. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, or a fulfilled feeling of belonging. With a negative connotation, pride refers to an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments, often used synonymously with hubris and arrogance. The kind of #pride that I was thinking of is the latter one.

Every one is guilty of this kind of pride, however, some of us more so. Some of us proud of our pride, while the rest of us it just sneaks in on us. Most of us get in to this #pitfall #unknowingly, it is because we don't know what it looks like in action.  It has many forms.

Pride makes us #stubborn even when we know we are wrong. A prideful spirit rears its ugly head most often when in conflict with others. We know that feeling. When we have an argument with a partner, a friend, a family, etc. He or She might say something that we know in our heart to be true and deflates our entire #debate. Yet, something inside of us cannot admit that we are wrong. We can’t let him or her win. We can’t show weakness. So we try another tactic, change our attack and elongate a #discussion that could have easily ended 30 minutes ago. But we just can’t lose… at anything. That’s pride.

Pride keeps us from saying we’re sorry. This point is closely related to the last for good reason. Sometimes in arguments we say things that we don’t mean. Sometimes we say exactly what we mean, and that’s the problem. Whether intentional or not, we hurt the feelings of those we love. Yet, when the opportunity to apologize comes up, we hold fast to our pride and our tongue. We blame the other person for being “overly sensitive.” We maintain we were only being honest about our feelings. We do everything we can to avoid the fact that we have caused someone else’s pain. That (and only that) requires an apology. If we cannot apologize, then it is pride.

Pride keeps us from trying new things. Some of us never venture beyond the four imaginary walls of our comfort zone. I can be that way sometimes. I know deep in my heart that it has nothing to do with a fear of change. I never want to look like I don’t know what I'm doing, and nothing can make me feel more uncoordinated or inadequate than trying something new for the first time. It’s OK to feel uncertain, but when the fear corners us into a room of familiarity, we are missing out on life.

Pride makes us think we’re #invincible. It will cause us to act out of character simply to make a meaningless point. It can make us disrespectful to people in authority.

#Shyness is a form of pride - I bet you did not expect that.  When we’re so consumed with what people think of us, how they will treat us, and what we’re going to do when the spotlight is on us, we’re #self-centered. We are the center of our thought life. It’s the last place we need to be.

I think the opposite of pride is love or love is the absence of pride. The catchphrase "Love means never having to say you're sorry"  from the novel and 1970 film Love Story is absolutely is not true. Love means saying we are sorry readily, frequently and often when it’s not even our fault. Love is not weakness but pride is.