Pride or Ignorance?

I often hear a lot about pride. I hear “well, I have my pride so I won’t back down” or “I know I heard that person say something two houses down and I won’t put up with it!” What. Really? Two houses down? Who cares, worry about your own house! A wise man told me that you should try to keep the peace because the more you worry about what others say about you, you are only giving them more power! The more you stress about what someone else is saying, the more you are strengthening their grips over you. Don’t worry about other peoples homes, look at what’s going on in your own. The anger that you hold inside of yourself is only creating a prison in your own life, let it go and you will live more freely. I believe we need to understand what pride means before we start throwing that word around and causing problems in our own lives. Here is the Webster definition of pride; “inordinate self esteem: conceit. A reasonable or justifiable SELF RESPECT.” It is key to understand pride is about oneself, the way you feel about yourself; not petty actions by others.

I was at a Hibachi a few months back with a few friends and sitting around the table was an older couple who were a few drinks deep and I over heard the husband say to his wife that my friend and I were “fags.” I almost threw my noodles at this man who knew nothing about me but, I took a deep breath and thought “ why should I loose my delicious noodles (which I crave 24/7) and ruin a fun time out with friends whom I care about! I would only be giving him power over my emotions and therefore letting him ‘win power’ while making me the foolish one who is kicked out of a really nice place that I love to frequent. I could have easily said “well, I have my pride” but, how would my pride have been if I created a problem over foolishness? I simply ignored his ignorance and he ended up leaving shortly thereafter because his wife was embarrassed by his foolish behavior. I had some more noodles, a lot of laughs, and ended up having a really fun night!

My point here is that if you worry too much about what others think about you then you are always going to be defensive and will never enjoy what surrounds you. If you are so sensitive about foolish words, then you are actually weaker than the one who is so ignorant and insecure about themselves that they are trying to tick you off in order to feel better about themselves. Ignorance is alive and well in our world and we are surrounded by it at most times of our lives but, do we want to stoop to the ignorant persons level or are we smarter than that? Once we realize that we are not perfect we can start to understand that neither is that other person two houses down or at the hibachi but, we will be giving them power by our own foolish prides if we let their actions create our reactions! As we get older and wiser, we begin to realize that we don’t have all the answers but we can make changes in this world by making changes in our own homes and not worrying about two houses down...