Have you ever known someone who was so absorbed by pride that they wouldn’t listen to anyone around them? Pride tends to get in the way of listening to reason and accepting advice from other people. It interferes with making good judgments and decisions.
What Exactly is Pride?
Pride has many different definitions, each giving the word a different attached emotion.
The more positive and healthy definition of pride is having an appreciation or respect for yourself and expecting appreciation and respect from other people.
The more negative definition of pride is valuing yourself and your beliefs as more important than other people.
Is Pride Good or Bad?
Pride could be considered both good and bad depending on the way it presents itself.
Pride could be considered positive when it is not felt in excess. For example, you should feel proud of certain accomplishments in your life like graduating, getting a new job, purchasing your dream house, or owning a successful business. It is healthy to appreciate yourself for accomplishing these things.
However, if you excessively boast about your accomplishments to other people, talk over other people, ignore others’ insights, and show no respect for other people, pride turns negative. This type of pride can cause you to lose relationships as people don’t appreciate being treated as “less than”.
What is Wisdom?
Wisdom is the ability to use your knowledge and experiences to make well-timed and well thought out decisions.
Contrary to popular belief, anyone can possess wisdom. Wisdom is developed throughout the course of your life by having empathy for others, learning to care for yourself, accepting diverse perspectives, failure and dealing with difficult situations.
Why is Wisdom Important?
Having wisdom allows you to take on a long-term perspective when making decisions. Wisdom leads to better decision-making which invites more positive things into your life including the following:
- Fewer reckless mistakes
- Achieving goals more quickly
- Fewer difficult problems
- Better communication
- Higher confidence
How Does Pride Interfere with Wisdom?
As mentioned in the quote, pride gets in the way of making wise decisions. In a way, pride is the opposite of wisdom.
Pride prevents us from seeing other perspectives and listening to people who may know more than we do. But these are the exact qualities that are crucial for wisdom. Pride damages our relationships with other people, but wisdom consists of good communication and good relationships.
In order to make room for wisdom, we need to become less prideful and open ourselves up to new perspectives.
How to be More Open to Wisdom
Question Your Own Perspectives
Pride makes us excessively confident in our own beliefs to the point where we ignore others. A good way to start listening to others is to start questioning yourself. When a thought comes to mind that you feel confident in, ask yourself some questions regarding that belief and be open to learning new information.
Accept New Opportunities
Wisdom is gained through experiences. Seek out opportunities that you’ve never experienced before and strive to make the most out of those experiences.
Listen to Other People
Wisdom is also gained by taking on different perspectives. Listening to people who are different from you can allow you to see situations and circumstances from different perspectives.
Remember, if you have excess pride, it might be time to open yourself up to new experiences and perspectives to gain wisdom and the benefits that come along with it.
