Pride is useful and necessary for a person. It allows you to follow beliefs, maintain inner balance, maintain self-esteem, not let yourself be humiliated, teaches you to value yourself. But what to do if pride has grown into pride – a cocktail of pride, selfishness, arrogance and arrogance. Believers consider it a mortal sin. Psychology will say that pride interferes with personal development, building relationships, and moving up the career ladder. People always pay dearly for pride. Loneliness is one of the board options.
What is pride
The study of pride is at the intersection of psychology, philosophy and ethics. Pride is the opposite of humility. A proud person is not able to make compromises, concessions, sacrifice something (sometimes himself).
It is not shameful to be proud of well-deserved successes, but it’s not good to constantly insert your “I” into the topic. A proud man looks at everything with contempt. And in fact, he does not respect himself, although he positions himself almost as the creator of the whole world.
Pride is the attribution of great merit and dignity to oneself, an overestimation of oneself against the background of belittling the dignity of other people. A proud person believes that only he is worthy of attention, praise, admiration. Because of his beliefs that the inner world of other people does not deserve attention, and that people can and should be treated as things, the carrier of pride receives the hatred of the environment and persecution.
What else is pride dangerous about:
- A person forgets that he is not perfect, that failures happen to everyone, and circumstances do not always develop the way we want.
- The more pride eats and develops, the less a person conducts an internal dialogue and the more he blames the universe itself, does not see his own fault in the causes of failures.
- After this, the process of self-destruction of the personality often begins, the escape from reality, and the experiences themselves, negative emotions have a destructive effect on the body.
- Pride does not allow to make concessions, provokes conflicts. As a result, friends and loved ones turn away from a person, but the proud man himself does not understand that he betrayed everything for the sake of his pride.
- If pride is combined with cruelty, then a tyrant will appear before us.
Pride and pride
Pride is the result of overcoming difficulties, working on oneself, deliberate actions, confirmation of the value of a person. You want to show pride – and that’s okay. Therefore, the heroes are honored in front of the audience, reports are filmed about them. If you have something to be proud of, then you need to do it. These are pleasant and useful emotions.
What’s interesting: for pride to arise, you must identify yourself with the cause of pride. We can admire the actions of other people, but only if this person is close to us, we will experience a sense of pride in him and our involvement in this person. By this principle, you can be proud of your friend, family, country.
How pride differs from pride in the end:
- Pride is a moral feeling. It includes self-sufficiency, self-esteem, personal independence. At the same time, it is an awareness of the conformity of actions to values and beliefs. You can feel pride for yourself or for another person.
- Pride encourages and motivates to new achievements and self-development. It makes a person believe in their own strengths, see their capabilities and potential, strive for the best.
- Pride can only be in relation to the person himself, his Ego. Moreover, this person does not necessarily really have reasons to be proud of himself. Pride can be based on selfishness and an unhealthy sense of self-worth (worth). Pride slows down personal development, separates a person from society.
Proud people tend to be jealous. They often pretend to be someone else’s place, no matter what does not correspond to it at all. The owner of pride always has overestimated requirements, he is always dissatisfied and expects more. For he sincerely believes that his beautiful personality deserves all the best and constantly something new. Such people in absentia consider the world to be bad, they try to put each person in their place (as a proud man sees it).
The reasons for the development of pride
Unfortunately, normal and useful pride can grow into pride – baseless and exaggerated pride and a number of other immoral qualities. But pride and such an arrogant attitude towards the world does not necessarily follow from adequate pride.
- The roots can go to a person’s insecurity, resentment, anger, complexes. Then pride is a variant of overcompensation.
- Another possible reason: a person despises others because of his social status, moreover, coming from the family (the parents achieved, and the proud man himself did nothing at all, but inflated his Ego).
How to get rid of
To overcome pride, you need to cultivate humility in yourself – the realization that there is no limit to perfection, the recognition of your imperfection and the ability to match the circumstances.
This is not a philosophy of slavery or the cultivation of abandoning one’s interests. Although, unfortunately, so many people understand the term humility, identifying it with patience. In fact, this is a certain wisdom, resignation to the fact that no one is perfect: neither ourselves, nor the world as a whole. This is resignation to the fact that not everything is subject to man: we are not able to change the structure of the world and the consciousness of mankind in the broad sense of the word. There are some objective things, laws, as well as subjective opinions of other people. You need to reckon with this, that is, put up, take into account and correct your behavior within the framework of this concept.
From which the second element of getting rid of pride involuntarily suggests itself: getting rid of egocentrism and unhealthy egoism, developing an adequate attitude towards people. Moreover, we are not talking about altruism, but about the golden mean, when you do something for the benefit of yourself and society at the same time.
Except with the help of self-control, your thinking and behavior cannot be changed.
- First of all, set a main goal: why do you want to get rid of pride. “Just because it’s a sin and bad” will not work. Write on paper what pride has deprived you of, and what you can acquire (what abilities, statuses, what people) by getting rid of it. Highlight a main goal, for example, “By getting rid of my pride, I will build a relationship with the person I love because I want to be with him.”
- Further, it is important to learn how to turn to people for advice and ask for their opinion. Exercise 1: Ask to compose your portrait. Since you are proud, it is better not to give you this task for independent execution. But people from the outside will honestly and, most likely, adequately describe your advantages and disadvantages. Accept this portrait without controversy.
- Further, the plan is individual: what is written in a negative way – we remove, what is written in a positive way – we return, develop, vaccinate.
- Learn to communicate with people. Ask them for their opinions regularly and listen to other people’s speeches. You must understand that each person is an individual and interesting person with their own rights and beliefs. Watching movies with further discussion is a good exercise. You can discuss with friends, or you can retell the plot from the perspective of different characters.
- Practice and only practice. Do something every day that is below your dignity (in your opinion). Just please don’t go to extremes, no real humiliation is needed. Your goal is to transform pride into pride, not kill your sense of self-worth entirely.
- Do not be afraid of kind words and gratitude. There should be more of them in your vocabulary than reproaches and criticism. Along with this, develop positive thinking.
Pride is a worm that causes rotting processes in the human soul. It can be eradicated, but it is not easy to do, and you cannot do without help. Admitting your imperfection and asking for help is the first but most important step. If you were able to say “I suffer from pride and thus imperfect,” then you can no longer be categorically called a proud person.
The main thing is not to reject this help. Those people who agreed to help deserve a widow’s more pleasant words, because it is not easy to endure a proud man. To do this, you need to see the positive potential. And if someone saw it, then you have every chance of success, if you yourself discern your true potential.
