On Feeling Pride
Pride, one of the ‘seven deadly sins’.
How funny that one of the things traditionally considered so detrimental to a person is something I am consistently told I need to have more of.
I have been considering this a lot lately after some crises of confidence over the past few months. I should feel proud for a lot of things that I do, that I am, that I believe, that I value, but more often than not I feel indifference, sometimes disappointment. I write a blog post (like this one) and I post it with a ripple of appreciation and feedback, and that feedback is usually ‘Wow Richard! That is amazing!’, to which I tend to respond with a shrug and some mumbled ‘Yeah…’.
As such, it has lead me to try to understand why I don’t feel much pride. So far, I have come up with the following:
Why should I be proud when everyone else is doing it, or better?
Why should I be proud when it was so easy?
Why should I be proud when I have done something that negatively overshadows it?
I want to touch on each of these individually, as hopefully in doing so I can better understand myself and eventually not think them any more.
“Why should I be proud when everyone else is doing it, or better?”
I truly think this is one of, if not, my greatest shortcoming in life. I compare myself to everyone and to everything around me, and it usually has only negative results. It can be in the professional sense, the personal sense, the emotional sense, literally any way you shake it I can, and will compare myself to other people. As a result, I can do something that is good, positive and wholesome, and instead of feeling that pride and contentment for what I have done or achieved, I almost immediately think about friends, peers, colleagues, anyone else and how they have done it better.
Within my profession this is a very real thing I think about. I perceive that most of my immediate peers have progressed beyond my level and I am being left behind. I feel that a lot of my friends have achieved more than I have in their lives and that I am way behind. It can be absolutely crippling. For this reason, when someone tells me to be proud of what I do for a living I always respond with ‘well all of my peers do the same, if not better, so why should I care?’. I guess the obvious answer to this kind of thought process is to stop comparing myself with others, but I find this difficult as often they have achieved what I want to. A ‘better’ job, a house, a solid relationship, a car, money, holidays, travel.
All of the above and more.
I suppose this is a symptom of modern life where we all are conditioned to want, want, want. Always striving for the ‘next thing’, and when that isn’t immediately attainable and others have it, it is unavoidable that some negative emotions will be stirred. I am such a quick and active person that I find it hard to stop the cogs in my brain whirring at thousands of RPM and take stock of what I have and why I should be a) thankful and b) happy with that. Some inner peace and contentment that my life is mine and mine alone, with my unique set of circumstances, gifts and challenges.
“Why should I be proud when it was so easy?”
This is possibly the easiest ones to pinpoint. In life I have had the privilege of being naturally bright and as a result, a lot of things come quickly to me. I think that for me to feel pride in something, I have to really have worked for it. When it comes to writing these blogs, I don’t know how good they actually are, but they only take me a matter of hours to complete. When they’re done, they’re fired in to the ether and that’s it. I don’t feel a massive sense of achievement or the aforementioned pride, just the mildest stirring of completing something and not wasting time. I suppose a way to combat this is through positive feedback, but then that would defeat the purpose of creating such introspective posts. If they were hard to create, taking me days or even a week to write something, then maybe the pressing of ‘post’ online would give me more emotion. Likewise, when I cook a good meal for someone else, unless it was a challenge then I just feel like it’s on the normal level of what I can do and as such I don’t feel pride. If it had gone badly I would be distraught, so why when it goes well don’t I feel elation?
I think this does stem from always being an achiever and as such achievement is all I know and is my baseline. If, and when, I fall off that lofty (mostly self imposed) pedestal I am crushed. I need to start recognising what I can do is special and that regardless of how naturally things come to me, they are things that others may not be able to do. If I can create something impressive, do well professionally or have a small personal success I need to recognise these as the positives that they are, much more so if I can do them with ease.
“Why should I be proud when I have done something that negatively overshadows it?”
This final point is more of a general life assessment I am making of myself. I am, as it may have become apparent from earlier posts, ridiculously harsh on myself. I hold myself accountable for things that I haven’t control over, expecting far too much from myself when I need to recognise that I am human. Any action I take with a negative result, any event that negatively impacts me, anything that isn’t positive overwhelms me and overshadows anything good that I have done. For example, I took my girlfriend to Paris and we had an incredible time. However, because the flights ended up being seemingly overbooked (out of my control) we had to both cut the trip short and route back home via somewhere that wasn’t direct. Now, I should have felt proud that I had a girlfriend to take to Paris, I should have felt proud that I had the disposable income to treat someone to such a trip, and that despite the circumstance I still managed to get us home. Instead I felt this overwhelming feeling that I’d let her down, let myself down and generally done it wrong. This was in spite of her telling me it was okay and that she’d had a great time.
I think that this is the main thing I need to work on. To move on with what has happened, only worry about the things I can change and to feel pride in the great things I have and do in life.
I am not sure what this post is meant to be, or even if I should post it, but I have written it in the space of less than an hour so I guess that’s something, right?













