I could be 100% wrong in this thought, but I feel like there is a huge difference between feeling proud of someone or something and being prideful about something. To me, the core of this difference lies in whether it’s about gratitude or if it’s about the desire to be better than others.
What is Pride?
When looking at the Bible Topical Guide, pride is connected to words such as boast, conceit, envy, hardheartedness, and haughtiness. This makes me think of people who won’t stop bragging about themselves. It includes someone who views themselves as better than others. They look down on others.
Pride also, though, includes jealousy. If I’m prideful, I don’t like it when you get something that I don’t have, especially if it’s something that I want.
Some of My Own Experiences With Pride
I’ll admit it. I am super competitive. I hate to lose, especially if it’s something that I know I’m good at. Pride is definitely something that I need to work on.
Soccer
I don’t think that it would be exaggerating to say that my first soccer team was horrible. Honestly, considering how bad that team was, I’m not sure why I decided to continue playing soccer beyond that.
Unfortunately, there were two teams around my age in our town that year. The one team had all the experienced players. Most of the people on my team had little to no soccer experience. We didn’t win a single game the whole season. We were bad enough that we played one game where everyone except the goalie scored on us, and the goalie actually took a shot on goal. No, it wasn’t a short field. She actually felt confident enough that she left her own goal completely unguarded and dribbled the ball to the opposite side of the field. Then she took a shot on the goal.
During this game, I ran up and down the field wearing myself out. I can remember my coach even commenting on this, saying that some of the other players needed to put in a little more effort. Oops, there’s me being prideful about it. I think a part of me believed that if I worked hard enough, I could win the game on my own, or at least stop our team from being completely humiliated. Unfortunately, my desire to win led to me being extremely worn out after that game, and yet we still lost by a lot. Plus, even though logically I know that it wasn’t my fault that my team lost, I kind of felt like it was my responsibility to win the game for my team.
More Soccer
The next year, I sprained my ankle during soccer season. While I was out for two or three weeks, the coach adjusted the line-up, moving a midfielder back so two people were covering my usual position. Of course, I felt a bit prideful about that. While I felt prideful about my abilities, I’m still pretty sure my team didn’t win a single game that year. It wasn’t until the next year that I was on a semi-decent soccer team. Honestly, if I was as good of a player as I’d like to believe that I was, I’m pretty sure the other team in our town would have wanted me to switch to their team that year.
Nerts
When I was going to grad school in Michigan, the YSA would often play Nerts. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, it’s kind of a Solitaire-based game where everyone’s working to put down cards at the same time. The first person out of cards yells, “Nerts,” and then you count everyone’s cards to determine the winner (generally the person who went out first).
It’s not being prideful (okay, maybe I am a little) to say that I generally crushed the competition. I rarely lost a round. Yet, I’m not exactly proud to admit that I was extremely prideful about my wins. I was recently looking through some old pictures on Facebook from when I lived in Michigan, and I came across a picture of a slightly exaggerated Nerts scoreboard: Shilo=1,117 points versus Everyone else= -20 points. I felt a bit of that pride come rushing back.
Okay, I have to confess something. Yes, I felt great about myself every time I won a round of Nerts. Yet, it really wasn’t fun. Once I’d set myself up as being really good at Nerts, I had to win. Everyone else could just play the game, enjoying the experience and laughing. They could tease me a bit if they happened to win a round. Yet, I had set myself up with the standard that I had to win because it was expected of me. If I lost even a round, my pride told me that I was a loser.
Indexing
For anyone who doesn’t know what indexing is, it involves making historical documents searchable online. This may include historical documents such as obituaries, draft registrations, marriage records, and birth records. Through this, people can do family history, including preparing their ancestors for proxy temple work. Basically, a document is uploaded, and you look for names, dates, and other important information, recording it.
In 2015, our stake started an indexing competition. I had recently started going to a family ward. I really didn’t feel like I fit in. More than anything, I wanted acceptance. Some people in the ward had made some less-than-friendly remarks to me, and this felt like the perfect opportunity to prove that I mattered, that I was an important part of the ward.
After a few weeks, the Relief Society president started to announce in Relief Society the names of a few women who’d indexed a lot that week. She would announce their numbers, and they were always lower than mine. Their 200-300 names per week felt like nothing to me compared to my sometimes 1,000 plus names in a week.
There were nights when I figured that if I could just stay up another hour to index more names, maybe I’d be accepted and appreciated by the Relief Society women for my efforts. It never happened. By the end of the year, I was burnt out on indexing. It took me a while to want to do it again. At the end of the year, I got a certificate saying that I’d indexed 58,179 names. Of course, everyone who participated got a certificate. I didn’t feel like I’d been properly recognized since the person who did 10 names the whole year got a similar certificate.
What Does It Mean to Be Proud of Something?
I feel like this is harder to define. Other people may completely disagree with me, but I feel like being proud of something is about feeling a sense of accomplishment. To me, it involves gratitude. When I feel proud of something, I feel good about myself because I have worked hard, but I also realize that without Heavenly Father’s help, I could not achieve something. When it moves into the territory of feeling like I accomplished it on my own, I shift from being proud of myself and my accomplishments to being prideful about myself and my accomplishments.
Several years ago, I remember attending a training meeting at church. One of the ladies talked about how self-esteem was all about pride and how when we say that we have a high self-esteem, we are really saying that we are prideful. I didn’t argue with the lady, but I definitely feel differently. I would agree that self-esteem does have to do with pride, or at least that it can. When I feel good about myself, though, that’s when I see myself as Heavenly Father sees me rather than when I’m trying to compete with others or when I’m comparing myself to others. Of course, one could argue that I’m understanding my self-worth rather than that I’m feeling a higher self-esteem.
An Example of Being Proud of Something
Is it sad that examples of times when I’ve been prideful came to be readily, but when I tried to think of examples of being proud of something, it was a lot harder to come up with examples? Here are a few that came to mind:
The Temple
Earlier this year, a temple was dedicated near where I graduated from high school. A close friend from high school was eager to tell me and others about this temple. She was super excited to take friends through the temple during the open house. She was eager to tell me and others about the history of the temple and to share pictures of the temple.
This experience was actually the inspiration behind this post. I remember thinking that she was really proud of the Feather River California Temple. Because of the negative connotation associated with “proud” and “pride,” I remember wondering if there was a different word that I should be using to describe how she was feeling. Yet, saying that she was proud of the temple feels completely appropriate to me.
My friend was (still “is”) grateful for a temple so close to home. She appreciated the story of people from different religious backgrounds working together to make the temple a reality. She was grateful for the opportunity to share her religious beliefs with friends and others who aren’t as familiar with what we believe.
Because my friend was proud of the temple in her area and not just feeling prideful about the temple, her happiness is not diminished if others receive the same blessing. She doesn’t feel jealous if someone else’s temple is bigger, closer to home, or is open longer hours.
A Child’s Firsts
There can definitely be a fine when it comes to a child’s firsts. Whether it’s their first steps on their own, their first words, or their first time reading a book on their own, experiencing these first can bring about gratitude and excitement for parents and others close to the child. Unfortunately, this can stray into the territory of being prideful when the parent begins to compare their child’s accomplishments to another’s child’s accomplishments. A child walking at eleven months old shouldn’t be viewed as superior to a child who doesn’t walk until fifteen months old.
Facing Fears or Trials
We all have things that we’re afraid of doing or that we dread doing. Once we’ve done them, though, we can feel good about ourselves and be proud of that accomplishment.
For example, I am terrified of heights. My family can tell you that anytime we go to a place with a cliff, I’m the one standing as far from the edge as possible. Even pictures of cliffs or other places where I can envision people falling are sometimes a bit hard for me to handle.
I have a really hard time going down those outdoor stairs that you can see through. Bridges, particularly those where you can see the water beneath, are terrifying to me. Anytime I’m somewhere high up (or in some cases, probably only a few feet from the ground), I’m pretty much convinced that I’m going to fall and die. Yet, there have been many times when I’ve had to grab onto the railing, maybe even close my eyes or look straight ahead, and face my fear of heights. When I’ve done that, I’ve felt good about that accomplishment. I’m proud of myself for doing that, but that doesn’t mean that I’m prideful about it (at least I hope that I’m not). If someone else feared heights like me, I would be proud of that person as well if they faced that fear.
How Do They Compare?
One thing I’ve realized about pride is that when I allow it to rule me, if at any point I don’t feel like I’m the best, I feel like a failure. When I’m proud of something, this feeling of failure never comes.
Ultimately, at least in my opinion, there is one main way you can tell if you are being prideful or if you are proud of something/someone. When you’re being prideful, it’s about being better than someone else. You have to look good for your peers and feel like you’re better than them. When you feel proud of yourself or something, someone else’s accomplishments do not diminish your own accomplishments. I can do really well at something. You can do really well at something. Both of us feel good about ourselves and are happy for the other person. My accomplishment doesn’t have to outweigh yours for me to feel good about myself.
I do wish that there were words in English to differentiate being proud of yourself/others/something versus being prideful. I’m not familiar enough with another language to know if any other language has separate and distinct words for each situation.
