Many years ago, my husband and I met a lovely couple. Kind, charming, welcoming. When we went to their home, their hospitality was always top-notch, to the point that it felt like our second home. We were a close group, and we would see each other at least once a month.
During one of these visits, something felt a little off. The couple were not as happy as they normally were. Answers were short, eye contact was minimal, and there was this nervousness in the air.
The wife of the couple was always a great cook. She would go out of her way to prepare a beautiful spread. Each dinner would be a minimum of four courses on a perfectly spread table, with each glass and fork polished and cleaned to a sparkle. She had an ease to her cooking and hosting that I always admired. Although I would often offer to help, she would always say it was okay, and her husband would step in to help her serve, wash and clear the table.
But on this particular day, she was running around like a headless chicken. Cursing loudly in the kitchen because something didn’t taste right, look right, or cook right. The table wasn’t set. She refused to let her husband help her, and the ease that she once exuded was no longer there.
Once we did sit down for dinner, the table was perfectly set, the dinner was perfectly delicious, but this time, her behaviour was a little different. We spent most of the dinner listening to her share the stories behind where she sourced the ingredients, how she came up with the recipes, and how she was putting together a new cookbook. Whenever her husband would try to chip in, she would talk over him, berate him or one-up him with a better story.
For example, her husband was speaking with us about his injury from work, and she jumped in and berated him for it, implying that it was his lack of care which caused the injury. She continued talking about her new book as if he had never spoken. Her husband quietly shrunk into his seat like a child who had just been told off.
This is when we made the biggest mistake. We gently interrupted her to make her aware that she cut him off when he was speaking. After dessert, she spent most of the time in the kitchen, upset. She then asked us to leave shortly after.
Now, this story was completely made up, but the fact is, the spirit of pride is often hard to detect. One can perceive confidence or self-assurance as pride, as the spirit of pride can show up in areas where we thrive and have natural talent. But there is one thing: having genuine satisfaction in the work you do every day, and the other in allowing yourself to become arrogant. Here lies the often thin line.
For instance, as a writer, I have pride in my work. But the pride I have in my work becomes destructive only when it changes my heart and leads me to believe I have some form of superiority over others.
How to spot this in someone’s behaviour?
Someone easy to offend, often dominating conversations, talking about themselves, refusing to ask for help and one-upping others. Their attitude towards things they used to love or enjoy may change. They may go from a person who moves with ease to one who moves with a forceful and competitive nature. They may be quick to find fault in others to make themselves look better or superior, or lack the empathy to be compassionate to others.
We live in an era where many believe they hold the ultimate solution to your problems, and their success in one area gives them the authority to tell others how to live, behave, and view the world. In fact, I have even seen people go so far as to label those who haven’t accumulated wealth or their own homes as lazy and inferior. But although we all know this isn’t true, all it takes is the right person to say these things to someone at the wrong moment before it can completely warp their perception of themselves.
Pride is dangerous because it not only changes our hearts, but it also changes the way we treat others. Sometimes it removes love and empathy altogether, leaving only fierce competitiveness. Left too long, it can change a person altogether.
So what is pride?
Pride is the need to be better than others. It’s a superiority complex that is hard to shake, as it’s deeply embedded in someone’s identity. It’s the ‘I have, therefore I am’ mindset.
The reason it is dangerous is that the superiority complex underlying this characteristic is simply not true. When one becomes prideful, it removes the roles of God, chance, talent, and opportunity and replaces them with the ‘superior-self’.
Most of us may not get to this stage of tone deaf arrogance, but some may not recognise that the road to get there is often paved with praise, talent and the audacity to recognise your own brilliance. You just have to be aware of the world around you on this path.
