The danger of pride

"Pride is a tricky, glorious, double-edged feeling."

Adrienne Rich

Pride is generally seen with a positive connotation for most people.  I see it as a tool whose role can be just as negative as it can be positive.

The positive role it serves stems from the motivation it can bring to create/do things that you are proud of, and end satisfaction of accomplishing those very things.  This is very important and rarely will I fault anyone for finding ways to motivate themselves to do better, be better, or strive for better lives.  The positive role can be expanded on quite a bit, but for the purpose of this post, I want to focus on the danger that goes along with pride because I don't feel like it is talked about enough.

To me, pride it innately personal.  The things I am proud of I see as a reflection of myself; a reflection of the standards I carry as a person.  The people I am proud of are the people that live up to my standards.  Standards are a reflection of your own values, ethics, morals, philosophy and perspectives and ultimately set the bar for how you judge what is 'good enough.'  Because these are all reflections of what you think, they are naturally not necessarily a reflection of what other people think -- and this is where things get tricky.

The negative role that pride plays in society stems from the defensiveness that surfaces when your pride is hurt or questioned.  Most people have established their standards from experiences throughout their lives, and their standards can change as they experience new things.  Because of this, almost everyone's standards are different, and almost everyone thinks their standards are right -- at least in the moment they are questioned.  Either his standards are too narrow-minded or her's are too tolerant.  This type of thinking perpetuates people to lose one-selves humility, and pass into a sense of superiority.  "You think you're better than me?"

The honest truth is, when your livelihood is questioned, when your values are questioned, you are most likely going to react, and that reaction might or might not be rational.  But here is the thing: in the same way that you don't like your standards questioned, they aren't going to like theirs questioned when you react.

When your pride is hurt or questioned, take a second and think: is anything you are about to do (or not do) going to change what you think of yourself or what they think of themselves? Will your reaction help? Are you really "defending your honor" or are you sinking to their level?  I do think that sometimes it is worth it to fight for what you believe in because it can make a difference. I just urge you to ask yourself if it is a fight you can win -- and really think about what winning really is.

Pride can be an invaluable tool that motivates and amplifies satisfaction, but I have seen almost as many times, if not more, it forces irrational reactions.  Understand when to push forward and when to pull back -- use it as a tool rather than boundary.

You can be wrong

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aristotle

One of the most important lessons that I could ever share with you is the need to have an open mind. While I hope all of the lessons in this blog are helpful to you in one way or another, I will always respect your right to disagree with each and every one, with the exception of this one lesson.

Being open minded not only opens yourself to the endless opportunities that this world has to offer, but it also makes your views of the world deny hatred and discrimination.  I will save the latter half of that argument for another time, but right now I want to focus on the mindset of being open minded and what it does.

Your mindset serves as the lens that you see the world and is more powerful than you could ever believe.  As I discussed in this post, just believing can change your life completely, knocking down barriers that you never thought you could and achieving more than you ever thought possible.  The greatest thing I could ever wish for you is to have a strong and benevolent mindset.  To have a strong mindset, there is a balance between being firm on your values and adaptable to the changing world with adaptability being the most important piece in that puzzle.  As you continue to read these posts, I hope that you do not take them as fact, but rather as an opinion from someone who is trying to look out for you.  I could be wrong about everything I tell you, but my goal isn't to create your thoughts, but rather just provide you with ways to shape your own opinions.

A simple way that I have used to shape my views on everything in life is to know that I might be wrong -- I might be wrong about everything I believe. It is a scary realization to come to, but an important one. Start thinking about all of your opinions and beliefs and ask yourself how you came to each of them. Each was formed not from a simple experience, but by piecing together various experiences to form your current thoughts.  To assume that you know everything right now is ignorant and in the same regard, assuming everything you know is more than another person is equally as ignorant.  Never assume you are right.  This means more than giving another person a chance to speak, it means listening when they do, really listening and then deciding if you agree or disagree.

One thing that I am looking forward with this blog is the day posts start conflicting with earlier posts. The reason is that while there are things that I feel strongly about today, I hope I don't feel the same way about all of them throughout my life, because otherwise that would mean that I have learned nothing of worth since the time that I made my opinions. Stop and think about that. In order for you to grow, so must your thoughts and beliefs. I am not saying that you must constantly change your views or that growth requires you to change your mind, but it does require new experiences and additional context, and in order to grow your thoughts, you must have an open mind.

As you continue to build an open mindset, one danger I will warn you about is the perception that you are not confident in your opinions. Naturally, if you assume that you might be wrong, you are assuming that you might not be correct and in doing so it could change the way you frame your statements. Two topics that I plan to write about in the future is the idea of confidence vs. arrogance and the idea of perception vs. reality. Without getting into either in too much depth, be aware of how a mindset that is open to alternative views leaves something to be desired when people are looking for definitive statements. Just like many things in life, being self-aware can allow you to do wonders in believing what you want to believe and presenting yourself in the way you want to be appear.

Success requires failure

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."

Robert F. Kennedy

Throughout your life, you will be presented with millions of opportunities to do thousands of different things.  With each opportunity, you will weigh how you feel this opportunity will benefit you in both the short and long term, and also, how much it can hurt you.  What I have found very interesting in life is how these risks are conveyed in our society.

What you are going to find is there is a contradiction between what the world tells you to do, and what they expect you to do.  On one hand, you have someone telling you to take risks and change the world, and on the other hand you have the same people asking you to deliver perfection.

In using a sports example, let's look at quarterbacks in the NFL to see why this is such a contradiction.  These quarterbacks are tasked with winning every game they can, and if they don't they will likely lose their jobs.  What is worse than losing a game? Being the reason that they lost a game.  And what does this instill?  Make as few mistakes as possible. And what does this cause?  Quarterbacks needing to walk on eggshells, "manage games" and essentially never learn to become great.  Why? Because success requires failure and they are being asked to never fail.  Look back on the best quarterbacks that have ever played and tell me how many didn't fail before they succeeded.  In fact, tell me how many teams have won a championship before they had to go through the heartbreak of failure.  Look at the most successful people in the world, regardless of your definition of success and you will find the same correlation. Yes, there are going to be exceptions, but just look at the numbers and you might be surprised at what you see.

I have always been someone who has wanted to learn and better myself in everything that I do.  However, the times that I learn most, the times that I understand how to take good to outstanding, is in opportunities where I could fall flat on my face -- and in some of those cases I have.  But, every time I have picked myself up off the ground, I came out with ten times the experience that I would have had otherwise.

Stop focusing on what negative things might happen, and start concentrating on what positives that could be.  Whether you could fall short or you could succeed past your wildest dreams, I hope you realize that both of those outcomes are a positive, and the only negative would be never trying.

Having said all of this, it is important to understand the difference between seeking out failure and embracing failure when it happens.  My point is, aim to succeed, but don't be afraid to fail.  Create a mindset where picking yourself up after you fall is not a question of if you can do it, but when you can.

Lastly, try to become attune to other people's views on failure.  The reason I say this is because while you will continually hear advice from people telling you to do this, you are going to be placed into situations where someone is going to be falsely looking out for you. 

If you ever find yourself in a position that you feel like you can do a job or task but someone else is afraid that you won't succeed, ask them to do it anyway.  If they will not allow you to step up to bat, then please, really consider if you should be there.  While it might seem that they have your best interest at heart because they don't want to see you fail, really what they are doing is making certain that you will never succeed.  Run from these situations.  If you are scared of the risk, talk to me, I will support you in any way I can (financially or otherwise) to allow you to not be handcuffed to the risks.

Remember, the only way someone can ever determine your success or fate is if you allow them to.  Never give up the decision of your success.