DEALING WITH THE PRIDE OF KNOWLEDGE

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WHAT PRIDE IS

If not for the fact that I’ve read a little about what pride really means, I don’t think I would’ve been able to write an article that’s about pride without getting even a little prideful even in an article that says otherwise.

Now, let’s all get all familiar with the term pride. We all think it’s not of us until eventually, someone says it about us, or until we read about it somewhere and it quite describes exactly what we are.

The thing is, pride can come in two ways; unhealthy and healthy. And obviously, we all know which is good which is not. Though, we tend to always find ourselves falling more to the side of unhealthy pride.

Healthy pride are good and should be portrayed every now and then. There are various instances where healthy pride is seen and it’s also important that you don’t overdo it, in order not to make it so extreme.

HEALTHY PRIDE

Now let’s say, you’re a very good writer and you know that. Being proud of yourself and what you do is good because it makes you want to do more in order to get better.

Even other people see your good works and compliment you. You thankfully accept it because you know it’s what you truly deserve. And that also makes you want to put in more effort to become better.

Another instance is if you’re a parent and you’re proud of your son that plays golf in school so well. You give a sincere compliment that in return helps him to always give his best shot whenever he’s playing.

I’m sure now that you can relate with other instances of healthy pride that can be seen around. A rule of thumb: if it doesn’t make you feel less or more of yourself, then it’s healthy.

Because really, unhealthy pride makes you think less of yourself, more like having low self-esteem or making you think more than yourself, a more subtle way of saying arrogant.

You may be surprised at the fact that I called low-self esteem, pride. Well, that’s exactly what it is! Thinking of yourSELF as it is, is humility. But when anything falls above or below that ideal SELF, it becomes pride.

So don’t go thinking that only people that think highly of themselves are prideful. No, don’t do that! People that think less of themselves too are prideful alike.

But as it is, everyone is throwing arrows at just those so-called arrogant folks because they tend to have a prominent pride. Yeah, that’s what it is; Prominent pride. While the low-self-esteem folks that have a more subtle pride are left unharmed.

Well, that is the purpose of writing; to inform the non-informed and to shed light on things that seem obscure to comprehend. This part actually was just to explain more to you what pride really is and what it is not and I guess you get the point that I’m trying to make.

IDENTIFYING PRIDE OF KNOWLEDGE

So now let’s talk about the pride that exists in knowledge. As it implies, I guess you can picture what I’m about to say. Well, of course, you can because I know you ain’t no dummy!

Now the pride of knowledge involves a whole lot of things. It even involves things that you see as normal already, which for a fact is not supposed to be so. Some kind of prideful behaviour in this aspect has become more like a norm and no one tend to see the other side of it.

There are a lot of people out there who are so proud of what they know. They feel so entitled to their knowledge and they even tend to make it obvious most of the time. This can be really annoying, especially for someone like me who’s just trying to learn and know the little I can wherever I find myself.

For the purpose of broader understanding, I’ll be highlighting below some of the behaviours of those people who have “the pride of knowledge” that we’re talking about.

They always feel they know it all. Don’t dare to question them, it won’t end well.
No matter what you’ve to say to them, they’ll always be right. They have no wrong moments.
They do not take corrections; you’ll always be the one to be corrected and never them.
They don’t admit their mistakes; there is something that admitting their mistake does to their Ego, so they don’t even bother doing it.
When they are talking, they always want to be listened to, but they never listen.
They are great and persistent arguers. They always tend to have more points than you do, because they are “knowledgeable“. So don’t try to argue with such persons. You might be right, but just don’t prove a point by arguing.
They are never willing to learn from others. They already think that they already know so much-if not all, so what’s the point of further learning, they’ll often say.
As long as they know more than you, you’re less than them. They just have this conviction that you can never know more than them.
They see people who are smarter than them as rivals and that calls for unhealthy competition as if knowledge is a thing to wage war over.
Also, they get so attached to what they know, thinking it’s them alone that has such knowledge. They utterly think they have a monopoly over knowledge.
It even gets worse when such people hold leadership positions; you can’t object to whatever they’ve said, whether right or wrong.
They make use of fancy grammars and explain what they’ve said thereafter. (Just tell me, was the need for the fancy grammar in the first place when you can for a fact say it in simpler terms initially?)
They tend to be poor listeners because they don’t listen to understand, they listen to speak. And if at all they listen for some reason, they won’t take what you’ve said. They just nod over it and still go-ahead to do what they want.

CAN THIS KIND OF PRIDE BE DEALT WITH

It is important to note that no matter how bad this gets, there is always a way out of it. There’s really no problem without a solution. In fact, every problem has its solution lying beside it.

So, yes, these kinds of folks can be handled subtly without causing any more damage. And for the fact that I’m generalizing these people doesn’t mean we are left out. I’m pretty sure as you were reading through the highlight I write earlier, you would see yourself appearing in one or two cases.

That is to tell you that we’re all infected with pride. It just gets bigger and prominent in some persons, while others have one or two pride-infected cells.

There’s really hope; hope for living without pride of knowledge or better still a more self-awareness. If you ask me, then I would say self-discipline is the only thing that can actually make us live a humble and lowly life.

So just as I highlighted ways of identifying people that have the pride of knowledge. I’ll also do some highlights on how to deal with such persons, including ourselves because no one is left out of it, we’re all involved in it, one way or the other.

So here they are:

You really don’t have to detest such people for having such behaviours. Find something likeable about them. Something else that won’t make you think so much about their pride
You can as well pray for them. Yes, you read it right! Put them in your prayers. Most of them don’t even know that they are behaving in a prideful way. I would say they are really not conscious of it because if they were, they wouldn’t want to behave like that.
Don’t attack them when they speak. Present your own idea in a subtle way that kinda agrees with whatever they are saying.
Give them the benefit of the doubt. They might not be as prideful as you thought they were.
Tell them about their prideful acts and how it irritates you a lot. Don’t quarrel over it just say it softly and calmly to them because if you’re harsh when telling them, they’ll try to be defensiveness and that’s another form of pride arising already.

CONCLUSION

Dealing with this kind of pride may not be easy, but it’s possible. Just make sure to deal with it within yourself first, before going out to others. Remove the speck from your eyes first before you do so for your neighbour, as the Bible teaches.

Then you’ll see that it’s all worthwhile. I hope you learned a thing or two about this subject matter. Thank you for your time.

Thanks for reading guys. Kindly leave your comments below, and don’t forget to share.

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