I was sincerely upset when I was reminded that pride is one of the deadly sins of the Christian religion. I love pride. It has been a staple in keeping my mental health stability over the years. I learned that pride is something I can make up as I go along. Unlike self-esteem or confidence, which seem to be connected to mental health issues and trauma, pride is something very powerful and provides a good feeling.
I am proud of many things in my life. I am proud of my skills my creativity and my personality. I have pride in the person I am when speaking to others and the solutions I provide to my customers and Friends when they need it. I take pride in having lived my entire life without having to get a real job other than the one that started it all.
I have pride in my loyalty and in my promptness. I am seldom late and people can rely on that.
I am full of pride one might say. The problem is I am not full of confidence. My pride stays internal for the most part. I don’t trust it completely enough to show it in public. I am afraid of arrogance and egotism and so I don’t boast. I don’t show my pride because I can’t be guaranteed that that sharing won’t end in ridicule and disappointment
My pride doesn’t necessarily stand up to judgment. I might be proud of my accomplishments, but if I look deeper it’s not hard for me to find reasons to turn that pride into shame. Many of the things I am proud of are not really as good as the same things from other people but I choose to understand that that is irrelevant to pride. Pride isn’t supposed to be judged. It isn’t supposed to be justified.
Pride is not something you’re supposed to give to people. I never quite understood the statement I’m proud of you unless the reason is that you were directly responsible for whatever it is proud of in someone else. Pride is a personal thing. It’s mine. I own it and I choose not to compare.
But this limitation of course gets used as an excuse to not progress. I don’t want to test my pride. Perceived perfection is almost always broken by the first share. If I don’t share, my opinion and my ideas are perfect. I don’t risk finding out they are not.
So pride trumps low self-esteem in many ways. It just doesn’t do so in public in front of other people.
I’m a pretty cool guy and I’ve done amazing things and lived a decent life with imaginative philosophies about my universe and my place in it. I feel I have a lot to offer the world, even now as I’m halfway through my 61st year as part of society.
I just prefer to keep it myself rather than find out I’m not.
That kind of sucks, and definitely holds me back from any potential greatness I might have experienced had I overcome the fear of finding out I’m not what I think I am. Since that fear is strong, I have decided the next thing is to be happy with who I am in secrecy living alone inside my head.
I already figured out a few surprises late in life. The condition I blogged about last week known as z*z. I don’t think I could have done many of the things I had always assumed I’d be great at. My life goals and dreams are all hard. I don’t handle hard well. I’m proud of having lived a life where I get to eat the foods I like, live indoors and not having ever done much that was hard.
Few successful people can say that. Hard work is hard. Try doing almost nothing for 35 years. That’s a different kind of hard. And I did it with very few people being mad at me or hating me. I didn’t step on any toes. I didn’t need to be greedy to succeed. In fact, even at my poorest, I’ve been as generous as the budget would allow.
That is something to be proud of. At least here on my blog that I don’t tell anybody about.
I don’t want to be famous. I just want a few fans.
#prideworthy
