Pride: A Poison When Swallowed, Heals

Pride is the only poison that when swallowed, heals.

I got this powerful message when I was watching a video with regards to forgiveness. As mentioned in my previous article, the main reason why world peace is unlikely attainable is because of revenge and revenge come from greed, then greed comes from pride.

If there's one thing that is so hard to do, it's when you forgive the people who have wronged you or even forgive yourself for a decision that may have caused your life to go through misery after.

Whether we like it or not, forgiveness comes along with pride. Pride is the root cause why it is so hard to forgive. If you find yourself going through the difficulty of forgiveness, then you may be having trouble with pride. Even in a general aspect, not only talking about forgiveness, but in every aspect we go through, pride can also be seen.

Here's how to determine if you are struggling or dealing with pride:

You are bitter.

People with pride issues struggle to let go of their hurts and anger. That results in them having a hard time forgiving the people who have caused them harm. They treat their hurts like pets. They feed them, they help them grow and they protect them.

Protecting their hurts is such a selfish act that it could break one's relationships with others. It could destroy a family, friendship, or relationship.

I remember watching the documentary of Cherry Pie Pichache's documentary entitled "Radical Love". It shows her journey towards forgiveness and letting go of her pride. It's about her forgiving the person who killed her mother.

It was a perfect example of letting go of pride. I salute her for doing it but then again, she even told the criminal that her forgiveness is about setting herself free from heartaches and hatred living in her heart. She even compared herself to God's grace of forgiving the sinners sacrificing himself to the cross, how much more us imperfect humans.

You are unteachable.

People with pride are unteachable. They consider themselves as the greatest of all as if they know everything in the world. The people around them will have a hard time discussing things over because they don't consider their opinions, pieces of advice, feelings, or suggestions.

They are not open to criticism and they do not recognize their own mistakes. Instead, they blame others to make up for them. They justify their actions, make lame excuses, and they take criticisms negatively and personally.

If you are an unteachable person, then you are putting yourself at risk of losing the chances of good communication with the people around you.

You are a fault-finder.

People with pride are great at finding faults in the people around them. They tend to interpret each person's motives as negative. They always see the negative side of the person finding imperfections and mistakes.

These people are too negative and that magnifies their personalities as well. That makes them judgmental, not giving the other person the benefit of the doubt. They assume that the person's motives are wrong and harmful.

You are vain.

People with pride are too critical of their physical appearances. It's like nothing else matters except the branded shoes that they wear or the expensive bag that they carry.

There is nothing wrong with how you present yourself to the public because that's courtesy but if it becomes a habit of considering other people as lowly or ordinary then that's something else. If your main purpose of dressing up is to draw attention and feed your ego, then that's pride.

You are self-centered.

People with pride don't enjoy having someone whom they think can do better than them. It hurts their ego and they become insecure with that person.

Meanwhile, if they see a person whom they think they are better than them, they tend to blow off and minimize the importance of this person.

These common factors are seen in a prideful person. Living with pride is something you don't want for yourself because it's harmful. Then again, it's the only poison that when swallowed, heals.

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Thanks for reading.

Keep safe everyone!