Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.
Charles Caleb Colton’s words resonate with what I was taught as child: pride is a bad thing. The first three definitions of the word in the dictionary bear this out, labelling pride as an inflated estimation of one’s own value. But pride also means “pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself or believed to reflect credit upon oneself.” How is that a bad thing?
Modesty is touted as the ideal to strive for instead. It’s considered an admirable quality if you “have or show a moderate or humble estimation of one’s merits, importance etc.” The word ‘accurate’ doesn’t come into play there. Modesty brings to mind a picture of someone brushing off merited praise with: “Ah, it was nothing.” How is that a good thing?
If you make light of your achievements, you make light of everyone else who has achieved the same. Instead, be proud in the sense that you have a clear understanding of the merits of what you’ve done and realise its value: no more, and no less. Running a marathon is a wonderful achievement, and waving it off as nothing is a disservice to the hours and hours of training that made it possible to cross the finish line. But thousands of people run marathons every year, so it’s not a unique achievement.
Don’t be proud or modest. Be realistic. Be both.
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Give yourself the gift of value
Comments on: "Modesty is not a good thing" (1)
This reminds me of something one of our professors told us this past semester, “You don’t do the world any favors by refusing to shine.” It’s true- each person is uniquely gifted and pretending like you don’t have the gifts you do is silly in a way.
At the same time I often find myself teaching my children appropriate ways to respond to praise. My son, for example, does some pretty incredible drawings for a boy his age. Many times when a surprised onlooker comments, “Wow! You are quite the artist!” his natural response would be, “I know! I’m the best artist in my class. My drawings are even better than he teacher’s!” Is he proud? Yes. Are the words he says inherently truthful? Well, yes. He’s good and he knows it, yet that kind of public proclamation is the kind that sets him up for rejection. To To that end we have to teach him to say, “Thanks. I really like to draw!”
At my church our former women’s pastor has addressed this very topic- how especially as women we tend to brush away compliments and even demerit ourselves to explain away praise. She challenged us to accept compliments with a simple, “thank you,” stop there, and allow the compliment to sink in. That is a challenging task when we’ve been so conditioned to do otherwise but it is a part of standing up into who we really are.