by Rumbi Chidemo

Created on: May 23, 2008

Pride is a virtue that can either make or break you! And I am talking from experience. there was a time when I thought I knew better than everyone else and if people didn't take my ideas I would not speak to them for days. I got so used to having my own way that I ended up dictating to people and would sulk for days if I was ignored. I also found myself competing with those people I thought were better than me and went to great lengths to prove that I always knew best. As a result this kind of sick behaviour made me very unpopular with people around me, is it therefore any wonder no one wanted to be friends with me? Although I knew I was being irrational most of the time I just couldn't stop myself. I just carried on being miss-know-it-all until one particularly nasty incident made me realize I was sick, not with disease but with PRIDE!

I would like to believe that pride is an inborn trait that runs in everyone's veins. I must have inherited my kind of pride from someone even though I never saw them displaying it the way I did! I will not however use it as an excuse even though I am tempted to. Let me now talk about the pride that is regarded as positive. In life there are many things that can make us proud. Like when we have succeeded where many have failed , or when we have achieved our goals as planned, or when we have been promoted as a result of hard work, or when our loved ones have done great things. All these are good reasons to be proud of because no one gets hurt when someone is happy. And then there is the kind of pride when someone insists on doing the right things all the time with regards to most things like good table manners, tidiness, wearing good quality clothes, driving good cars, having a good house, sending their children to good schools etc. I could cite many more examples. Again this kind of pride will not have a negative effect on those who are watching. It is because the person is just proud to show what they really want in life and that they have got principles. There is really nothing conceited about this kind of pride.

And then there is pride that we display as a result of what society dictates. Sometimes there are societal values that we must be seen to uphold and if we do not, there is always a chance of being labelled misfits, abnormal or subnormal. Because the idea of social stratification places people on different rungs of the ladder, the ones at the top obviously think they can dictate to those below. so we find the so called

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