Pride

From Our e-Book “We are Here to Celebrate”

woman touching gold necklace

Mandy loves to tell others about her expensive purchases and her escapes to expensive holidays and restaurants. Whenever she meets someone new, she will show a keen interest about the other person’s career and benchmark herself to them. If the other person is not up to her standard, she will start to distance herself from him/her.

Mandy’s ego is defined as ‘a rich upper-class woman’ and she clings tightly to that image. She chooses to associate herself only with people who fit into that description. However, by doing so, she has restricted her own growth. She does not see that if she opens up her circle of friends, she will learn from them and grow emotionally and spiritually. By limiting herself to those who fit into the image she created, her chances of growing out of this boundary that she created for herself is also limited.

Because she sees herself as a ‘rich upper-class woman,’ any mistake that she does is devastating to her and she will replay that image over and over again in her head to make herself miserable. She is not able to laugh at her own mistakes. Mistakes are devastating to her because she wants others to see her as intelligent and wise. After all, she is a ‘rich upper-class’ woman’ and such persons do not make themselves look stupid. In short, she does not allow herself to make mistakes and when she does, she will be very tough on herself. She will say to herself, “how can you be so stupid” or “that was such a silly thing to do” and so on.

Pride blocks humility and restricts our ability to learn from others and to grow spiritually. Pride arises because the ego wants to maintain the image it has created and that is very tiring because one have to put up a front and cannot be at ease with being oneself.

One who is swollen with pride will have few friends. Boasting about our accomplishments and the things we own will make the listening party feel inadequate. The next time we get the urge to boast, we must ask ourselves how that would benefit us and the other person.