A confession, by Erica Seales.
The other day, my friend Lori offered to do a load of laundry for me.
I said no as you need a special fabric softener to wash kids clothes.
While this is true, that was not the real reason I didn't want her to do
me a favor. The real issue is pride. So, I had to apologize to her for
my excuse which was in fact, a lie. Bad Erica, bad, bad.
But then it got me to thinking about pride. Even pride in housework, laundry,
in anything. While a certain amount of pride in our work is a good thing, there is
something about it that doesn't sit right.
If the reason we want to do "it" (whatever it is for us) is because we think we
can do it better, or in a special way (nice words for better) then that is not a
good kind of pride.
So I thought more on it. Why is pride so hard to kill? As people grow and mature, we fling off the confines of insecurity, fear, rejection and sometimes even deal with being free from serious stuff like depression, guilt, shame etc, but pride seems to be one people shy away from.
So here is my theory on pride.
1. Pride seems to be something that has less of "victim" feel to it. Guilt for eg. is something everybody deals with but pride has such a connotation of wrong-doing that people don't even want to admit they struggle with it.
2. Its easy to hide with other names....confidence, work ethic, being needed, and here's a big one....false humility!
3. It feels good! Depression feels horrible, people want to get out of that feeling as soon as possible, but there is something that feels a little bit good about being better than someone else at something, anything really.
I don't want to sermonize, I've just been thinking about this issue as I see it creep up in my own life, sometimes over the silliest little thing. I want to be a secure person, and to know that I'm loved even without doing the stuff that I'm proud of.
Maybe that's a part of beating insecurity, getting rid of pride!
Hmmmm.....I'll mull that one over for a while.
I'm getting deep in my old age. Oops, I said I wasn't going to call myself old anymore.
.....Starting.....Now......
The other day, my friend Lori offered to do a load of laundry for me.
I said no as you need a special fabric softener to wash kids clothes.
While this is true, that was not the real reason I didn't want her to do
me a favor. The real issue is pride. So, I had to apologize to her for
my excuse which was in fact, a lie. Bad Erica, bad, bad.
But then it got me to thinking about pride. Even pride in housework, laundry,
in anything. While a certain amount of pride in our work is a good thing, there is
something about it that doesn't sit right.
If the reason we want to do "it" (whatever it is for us) is because we think we
can do it better, or in a special way (nice words for better) then that is not a
good kind of pride.
So I thought more on it. Why is pride so hard to kill? As people grow and mature, we fling off the confines of insecurity, fear, rejection and sometimes even deal with being free from serious stuff like depression, guilt, shame etc, but pride seems to be one people shy away from.
So here is my theory on pride.
1. Pride seems to be something that has less of "victim" feel to it. Guilt for eg. is something everybody deals with but pride has such a connotation of wrong-doing that people don't even want to admit they struggle with it.
2. Its easy to hide with other names....confidence, work ethic, being needed, and here's a big one....false humility!
3. It feels good! Depression feels horrible, people want to get out of that feeling as soon as possible, but there is something that feels a little bit good about being better than someone else at something, anything really.
I don't want to sermonize, I've just been thinking about this issue as I see it creep up in my own life, sometimes over the silliest little thing. I want to be a secure person, and to know that I'm loved even without doing the stuff that I'm proud of.
Maybe that's a part of beating insecurity, getting rid of pride!
Hmmmm.....I'll mull that one over for a while.
I'm getting deep in my old age. Oops, I said I wasn't going to call myself old anymore.
.....Starting.....Now......
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