TOPIC: PRIDE
I am convinced, beyond all doubt, that pride is the worst of ALL personality traits. It is at the heart of greed, envy and jealousy -- not to mention a good portion of crime and other malice. It is what motivates hackers to hack, murderers to kill and thieves to steal. It is a source of depression, suicide and all sorts of addictions. Pride is the root of so many problems in society. It is rarely the source of any good thing.
One unfortunate aspect of pride is that we're constantly bombarded with advertising messages that convince us to be prideful -- of our car, our home, our clothes, our jewelry and even our debt (in the form of prestigious credit cards). Ads from automobiles (Mercedes Benz comes to mind) to whiskey (the current "Captian Morgan" campaign) all promote P-R-I-D-E.
Pride is not a problem that is current only to our culture. It has been a plague of many cultures over countless centuries. Democritus, a Greek philosopher from 400 years before Christ, wrote: "The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion." And 19th century Lebanese artist & poet, Kahlil Gibran, offered excellent wisdom on the subject of pride, "Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need." Even dale Carnegie offers us something to think about when it comes to pride and personalities: "When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity."
What a shame! If we were all a little more humble and not so self-serving, the world would be a better place to live.