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:: Saturday, July 29, 2006 ::

Pride and Prejudice

As with all feelings, unbiddable, sometimes uncontrollable. My question for today is: what role does Pride have in our lives? It is an irrevocable truth that it will flash a glimpse of itself from time to time, so my issue with it is whether it is... an issue. And with pride comes prejudice - truly, for when one is inordinately proud of something, does one not become prejudiced against others who lack this "something"? There's prejudice when there's pride in ownership. When really, from what some might call a religious perspective (almost any religion, mind), ownership is a rather transient thing (this holds true for a temporal perspective too!) You either lose everything when you die or it doesn't really belong to you to begin with.

But, back to my intial thought - what quality does Pride add to our lives? When do we even know to be proud of something, or do we push away from it so much as to become unrealistically humble? In our society, it's quite common to see a compliment answered with "Oh no, no, no, I'm not all that good". Less commonly do people respond with a "Thanks, you too." Rarely at all do people say "I know." (Though I must confess to being one of those few who do - but in my defence, I only say that to people who are friends and know me pretty well.)

However, the problem can be that pride is only effaced on the surface, when underneath the humble mien, one gleefully polishes away at the honour. I don't think there is a problem in being proud - rather it's a question of how much and how realistic.

As a teenager, I thrived on the belief that I was the best at everything I did - I had it in me - I just chose not to. As a young adult, I recognised that nothing I did would ever be the pinnacle of perfection, and as a result, treated compliments with disbelief or the cynical view that people said such things because they were my friends, or worse, because they wanted something from me. Right now, I hover uncertainly between believing in my own good and experiencing self-doubt from time to time. Which is why I've been wondering about Pride.

How much should one believe in oneself? Should one, after completing a particularly beautiful piece of work (even if you said so yourself), say, self-satisfied: "This is my talent"? How true is self-assessment?

I've always had a problem with that. It's like the troublesome cliche (or aphorism, not sure which)"Be yourself". I've never known exactly what makes me ME. How can I realistically say "This is who I am" if everyone experiences different behaviour from me at different times in different situations. Similiarly, how can one realistically say "This is good" if one lacks the knowledge of what constitutes "good" in the eyes of others, the world, or even God? Personally, I don't feel a lone assessment by yourself is enough to validate a strength or a weakness. (But since I'm looking at pride, I'm just going to talk about strength, be it self-perceived or not.)

Second opinions are important. It's not enough that I look at myself and say "This is good". I do that from time to time, I admit, when I suddenly think to myself "Hey, I'm good at this". Nonetheless, I think this is something that must be flagged, because afterwards there's a tendency to dwell in that track of thought and start believing it even when I don't know for sure that it's true. Then I start believing in my own self-importance and become frustrated that no one seems to appreciate or recognise this. (Unfortunately there's also an off-chance that you are talented, but people just don't care. It makes everything difficult. LOL)

Well, I'm not going to go further into that spiral. It all turns out bad anyway because you start (in turn) assessing others. You sniffily tell yourself "They don't recognise talent" and "I'm better than them". You judge people based on a flawed system of beliefs. Full circle back to Prejudice. Have I ever gone down that way? Quite possibly - I'm not perfect and I don't possess enough self-awareness at times to stop and look at myself and what I'm doing.

All the time I struggle with trying not to think the worst of people, dismissing them , thinking myself better, judging them. All the time. And in all honesty, I'm certain it has to do with pride.

I think I've gone on long enough, so let's look at solutions - Complaining and then doing nothing about it is ridiculous, 'cause you stay in that state.

When one believes one sees a seedling of pride in something 'owned' (I use this term very loosely because I don't know what else to use), first confirm that there's something to be proud of in the first place. (Corroborate with someone else)If there is, good. Believe in that talent. Know it. Accept it and move on. If not, forget it. You in yourself are already wonderful, you don't need another postive element to make you better.

And as with anything - Don't dwell on it.

The END. (Possibly) =)

Labels: Philosophy

:: And that's all she wrote 12:21 PM [+] ::
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