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Today's
quotation:
Pride may be allowed to this
or that degree, else we cannot keep up
our dignity.
In gluttony there must be eating,
in drunkenness there
must be drinking:
'tis not
the eating, nor 'tis the drinking that is
to be
blamed. So with pride.
John Selden
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Today's
Meditation:
There
are quite a few things that I'm proud of, but I try to
keep that pride in check. If I allow it to grow too
strong, it can be my undoing. Pride in and of itself
isn't much of a problem to anyone, and can be a truly
positive feeling. It's when we give it too much
importance that we face difficulties, that we can allow it
to be an albatross around our necks that is much more
damaging than helpful.
Many
people feel that pride is negative in all its forms, but
that seems to be far from true. What's wrong with
feeling proud for having worked hard and accomplished
something truly worthwhile? Would we tell a child
not to feel proud for doing well on a test? And if
we do so, what effect would that have on the child in the
future, if he or she finds no reasons to excel at the
things he or she does?
We've
all gone through some very difficult times, and we should
be proud that we've made it through in one piece, for the
most part. We've all accomplished some important and
fascinating things, and we should be proud of our
achievements. We've all avoided doing some pretty
terrible things and making some awful mistakes, and we
should be proud that we showed restraint and good
judgment.
The
problem comes up when we allow pride to take over, when
we're more proud of a certain something than that
something merits, when we put ourselves above other people
because we feel we have more to be proud of than they
do. If we do this, we really are setting ourselves
up for experiencing hell on earth, for there's no way that
we can maintain that perspective over long periods of time
and we start to feel insecure, frustrated, and fearful of
being exposed. Pride can be a good friend, but if we
give it too much power over us, it can be an awful enemy.
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