As stated in my last post, the plan is to talk about each of the 7 Deadly Sins individually. To extract knowledge of what we should and shouldn’t do to improve our lives. Today we will be starting with “Pride”, which I believe is sneakily the most damaging of the 7 sins in our day to day lives. So let’s dive in!
Let’s start by looking at the definition of this noun:
“a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.”
Example: “the team was bursting with pride after recording a sensational victory”
With this view of pride it is easy to view it as a good thing. Is it not a good thing to feel joy after achieving something of great importance? Would this feeling not drive us to seek this emotion again, increasing the amount of accolades we have and further increasing our sense of worth?
Now let’s look at a biblical definition of this noun:
“an excessive love of oneself, or an improper level of self-esteem”
The Bible definitely takes a more negative look on pride and I find this to be an interesting fact. Again, as I said in my last post, I don’t plan to make my posts overly religious despite myself identifying as a Christian.
Rather, I find it more interesting to look at the teachings of the Bible from a more philosophical sense. If we live in a world that values pride, but pride could be proven to be damaging to ourselves, then would this not provide some sort of support for the Bible? Or at least it’s teachings?
Objectively speaking, I see scenarios where pride can be beneficial in the sense of confidence or being proud of someone else. I can also see how pride can be destructive in the sense of arrogance or thinking yourself to be better than others.
Things are never black and white, so to call pride objectively good or objectively bad from the point of view of a non-Christian would be incorrect in my opinion. My belief is that if your pride has developed as a result of outcome rather than works, then you are doing yourself a disservice and have fallen to pride, as the outcome may not have been earned.
But if your works build up your sense of pride, then you have reason to, and deserve to be confident and therefore prideful, since your works are why you feel this way. If you are to underestimate others and put yourself on an artificial pedestal, then once again you are slighting yourself.
But if you are to lift others up with your overwhelming belief and confidence, then you are benefiting yourself in numerous ways. I think my view of pride is simple, there is good pride and bad pride and that depends on whether you are being selfish or selfless. Lifting others up or bringing others down. Giving others due credit, or underestimating others. But this is just my non-Christian view of pride.
My Christian view of pride varies heavily in comparison. This was something that I struggled with mightily as I asked the questions I had mentioned before. Is it not good to feel joy after achieving something of great importance? Would this feeling not drive us to seek this emotion again, increasing the amount of accolades we have and further increasing our sense of worth?
These questions lingered as I would read about pride being objectively bad in the eyes of a Christian and it took me a while before I came to realize the humbling effect of completely surrendering yourself to another, to let go of the pursuit of being perfect as I will never reach that standard.
To admit that I am flawed, very flawed, a sinful imperfect creature. The Bible teaches, or at least I believe it teaches, that all things good are done by and through God. If that is truly the case, then all of our great accolades and accomplishments are only great because of God and once again, through God.
If you aren’t a Christian and don’t partake in religion I can easily see how this can all look super hippy-dippy and some might even see it as negative or cult-ish. I understand you, because I was you not too long ago.
Sure I’ve identified as a Christian for a long time, but only recently have I actually begun to do things like reading the Bible and watching videos on the religion. It takes awhile before you find the comfort in letting go of everything being about you, it really opens you to love and being for other people, rather than yourself.
Once everything isn’t about you anymore, the concept of everything not being about you specifically, becomes easier to understand, crazy concept. I obviously say “crazy concept” ironically, as it makes a lot of sense. But really, to the average non-Christian, I think it’s a really hard concept to understand in a world were it is normal to think about yourself above all.
I’m sure you, like me and many others, like to see ourselves as selfless people, or at least decently selfless people. We help people here and there, so is it really all that bad to feel good about it? But that’s the problem, we help people here and there. We don’t fully surrender ourselves to this selflessness, to this thought that we aren’t the most important thing in the world.
I think it would be hard to come by someone who genuinely doesn’t prioritize themself as the most important thing to them, at least subconsciously. You only really see this in family or as I would put it, the most intense situations of love. Which I think is a look into what we could all be towards each other, through Christianity, through God. I see it as giving a range of 0-99% of yourself versus giving 100%.
Not so slick segue into something I talked about in the opener about this being sneakily the most damaging sin of the seven. I said this because it’s so easy to justify pride as I have hopefully showed in this post.
So much of pride is subconscious. We subtly brag about things all the time, I mean realistically, if you feel the urge to share something with other people, it’s probably you wanting some sort of praise or reassurance.
I’m not saying that this is objectively bad, as all conversations are likely motivated by some sort of selfish subconscious means. But I believe it’s important to be aware of what you are doing and ask yourself questions.
I believe that conversations should at the very least be mutually beneficial. So am I telling this person because I know they will be happy for me, or do I subconsciously want to have them think more of me, perhaps being a bit jealous.
Hopefully that wasn’t too much for the non-Christian readers out there. I am in no way trying to convert you, I am only speaking because I find this all interesting from a philosophical perspective.
I’m still new to this, but I hope somewhere in here was something of value, perhaps, I changed your mind on something and persuaded you to be more selfless. At the very least, if selflessness doesn’t appeal to you, then be selfless for yourself, because it can be very beneficial. 😉
If you’d like to read more about topics like pride and more, then I highly recommend the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. You can Click Here to check it out on Amazon (this is an affiliate link, so it also supports me too!)
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