Pride

If an unknown relative were to die and leave each of your siblings $50 and you $50,000  would you somehow feel that you were better than your siblings?  Would this feeling of superiority extend to the point of a subtle frustration at your siblings for not being "as good as you" and having $50,000? 


Why then, is it so tempting to think that if I have more money than someone else, that I am somehow better than them;  that somehow I deserve more freedom than them.


Why is it tempting if I have more knowledge than another person, to think that I am more important than they are.  Sometimes I even want others to be ignorant, because my superior knowledge would not give me appropriate frustration at their herd mentality if they were all as intelligent as I am.


Why is it so tempting to think that because I have a greater desire to be "righteous" that I am better than another?
Why, if I have more ambition, more determination, more self control, more self motivation, a stronger work ethic, more compassion, or am more responsible, do I think that I am somehow more deserving of love than another?


And even if we do not show hatred or contempt towards others who do not have what we are fortunate to have, sickeningly sweet benevolence is often shown.  And seldom is this recognized by the giver as wrong.  Is it not angelic of us to lower ourselves to help out the more misfortunate?  Do we really need to lower ourselves to help out?  Are we, in anything but our own delusions, really higher than another in any way?  Is our supposed superiority so incredibly painful as to render it unpalatable unless we garnish it with pride?  If something is really superior, would it not be truly more enjoyable, would it not intrinsically make us happier, without the need to boost our mirage of joy with feelings of pride?


"The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means 'hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.'"   -  Ezra Taft Benson


 Terry Warner talks about how sometimes we want someone to react harshly to us because we so want to think of ourselves in our own minds as good.  If we do or say something to someone that we are uncomfortable justifying to ourselves, and they react harshly to it, then we can grasp onto that and redeem our façade of perfection to ourselves.  So by being scared to realize our mistakes and love ourselves and be nonjudgmental of ourselves and willing to realize that we can change - when we are scared to break our masquerade of perfection, we often WANT others to react harshly to us so we can add that justification to hold up our pretense.  (Which by necessity must be very strong, as we must somehow fool ourselves.)

Sometimes when we have worked hard, and used our abilities to their fullest, our health or our superior intelligence, and our superior effort to be healthy or intelligent, then we feel we deserve to think of ourselves as better than others.  But the very determination and sound reasoning that we use to push ourselves to our potential, is a gift. 

"Perhaps thou shalt ^asay: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

  are we not all ^abeggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

  And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a ^aremission of your sins.

  And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to ^aimpart of the substance that ye have one to another.

 And if ye ^ajudge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your ^bcondemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life ^cbelongeth"  

                                                                                                                           (Mosiah 4:17-22)

" for ^cdust thou art, and unto ^ddust shalt thou return."    (Genesis 3:19)

"Now, for this cause I know that ^bman is ^cnothing, which thing I never had supposed."   (Moses 1:10)

"I am a ^ason of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; 

 where is thy ^bglory, that I should worship thee?"     (Moses 1:13)

Can we not enjoy our knowledge, persistence, determination, morals, righteousness, health, intelligence, and wealth, because they, in and of themselves, are enjoyable?  The tenseness of comparison, the strife of deserving something, is so potent, that it often masks the intrinsic enjoyment of something to the point that we really don't experience happiness through it, just the feeling of being right.  Gratitude, however, can have the opposite effect on our ability to enjoy our gifts.  It doesn't detract from our intrinsic enjoyment, rather it enhances and magnifies how enjoyable our gifts really are.