Give No Room To Pride
Many people's future have been destroyed by their own hands on the account of pride. One of my friends once made a very shocking revelation. He revealed that why many people's destiny helpers have not come through for them is because they appear already too big to be helped - even bigger than the potential helper. At that point, I realized how bad pride can be. Pride, in its simplest term, is an act of overestimating of one's worth and appearing who they are not. You will be surprised that what you are proud about is just a walkover for someone else, so stay humble.
Many people have missed opportunities because of pride, while others have gained opportunities that they do not even qualify for because of humility. One thing to note is that pride is quite different from ego. Yes, everyone is born and needs a level of ego, at least to help build their confidence and also to effectively function in this highly competitive world. However, when the ego is overinflated and blown over the limit, it then becomes pride. The thing about pride is that it may not be noticed at the onset by the person until it is blown up, and it becomes the weakness of the person.
There are sign, however, to show you that pride is already setting it: when you see yourself as being better than everyone else, when you see yourself possessing what no one else has, when you think of yourself more highly than everyone else, then this is a manifestation of pride and it should be stopped before it stops you. A story was told of a young man that graduated from the University with a first class and the best student in the entire school. Soon after that, he got a job in one engineering firm as a consultant. However, his direct boss and the overall supervisor both had second class lower during their own schooling days. This made the guy to look down on them.
Every assignment from his bosses were contested because he saw himself as being better than them even though they had been in the organisation years before he was employed. His result had entered his head because he was the only one with a first class in the entire organisation, and he saw the entire staff as being inferior to him. This led to constant friction between him and the staff over disagreement of views because he would not welcome an idea that is not his. One morning, he came to office but his sign-on details was not working (they had overridden it).
That was how the job was taken from him. Brilliant mind, fine gentlemen, but with a pride issue. His pride finally costed him his job and he had to go back to square-one. Sometimes, people's character is one of the major causes of their problems and not some "village people." You will be surprised that a lot of businesses, relationships, etc that fail are caused by things relating to character, of which pride contributes a major share. You will hear someone say "how can a whole me say sorry?" "How can you expect me to apologise?" "He is not in my class, I cannot respect him?" The list keeps going. Pride has remained one of the banes of many people in this era. This also brings to perspective a verse from the Holy Book:
Pride goes before destruction (a fall)
It is pride that makes one not to submit to constituted authorities and it will later have negative consequences on the person. Being unnecessarily and easily provoked is also a manifestation of pride. Doing things without observing the potential effects simply because you feel that you can do whatever you want is also a sign of pride. When you see yourself being a victim of the above, no one should tell you that pride has already started to creep in and it should be resisted before it forms an abode in you.
When you have discovered a problem, it becomes easy to solve it. When you discover your prideful nature, you can consciously move to overcome it. It may not be automatic, but keep taking conscious steps: respect people and their opinions, greet people first and with a smile, talk calmly to people, listen more to understand and not to contend with, relate respectfully with people irrespective of their status et al, and do not see yourself as being better than everyone else. With these steps, you will constantly put pride under subjection.
Thanks for reading
