Pride is bad. When you are overconfident is when you are the most vulnerable. It’s the feeling when you feel like you are invincible that you are the most prone to being attacked. The best position to be in is to be in a state of neutrality versus pride.
I’ve been there before. I felt invincible just right before the coronavirus pandemic crash during March 2020. My net worth hit a new high of $230,000 just a month before. It went back down to $146,000 in a matter of a month. Separately, there was a $1,000 college scholarship that I thought was a shoo-in for.
They selected somebody else to give the scholarship. Additionally, I was certain I was going to be selected to the next round for a $250,000 a year job. The company sent me the rejection email the day after the interview. Pride is a bad thing because it oftentimes leads to overconfidence, arrogance, or smugness.
When you feel like you can’t lose is when you will lose. There are an infinite number of ways that you can lose. It doesn’t even have to be money. One day, you might wake up and find out that you have cancer. Even when you felt like you were at the top of the world the day before.
Life comes at you fast, suddenly, and without warning. You can do everything right and still be thrown a curveball that destroys your empire. You just never know what will happen. When you feel invincible is when you should be the most careful. It’s not the time to take more risks than you are used to.
It’s the time to emotionlessly stay the course and keep moving forward. Feelings will be your greatest downfall.
Why is Pride Bad?
One reason why pride is bad is because you’re not SMASHING that social share button and posting to your favorite social media! Your friends might be feeling like they are on top of the world and may need to be adjusted slightly down. Learn from my mistakes because I’ve been there before.
The high of feeling great about my accomplishments were quickly wiped out by a monumental loss that I couldn’t control. It hurts you a lot more than if you were prepared for such a loss. Your friends could use this article to stay the course in a balanced way instead of feeling unbeatable.
There is no such thing as unbeatable in the world. Let’s keep all of us in check.
So with that said, let’s go into the concrete reasons why pride is bad.
1) Distorted Sense of Reality
Pride makes things or you seem worse or better than it actually is. If you made $50,000 in the stock market in a month, you start attributing your own self into the accomplishment. You start thinking that it’s completely because of your genius foresight.
No one has the ability to see the future. Otherwise, that person would have been a trillion-aire already. Your wins and losses may be because of you but it’s only partially because of you. There’s an infinite number of reasons why you are failing or succeeding. How much of it is attributed to you?
That’s a question that has no accurate answers. What is accurate is that it is never 100% because of you. Pride is bad because it gives you a distorted sense of reality. It makes things feel better than it actually is and worse than it actually is. You lose touch with reality and the world in general.
Don’t live in an alternate universe but live on the planet Earth as it is.
2) It Hurts Others
While we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, we are biologically and genetically social creatures. Social influence unconsciously matters to us. When people see how great you are doing, it creates complications. Some people feel the need to one up one another.
Or they may be jealous and want to take you down, which complicates your life even further. If you don’t mind the complication, fine. However, simple living is much better than complex living. If you had the choice, why make your life harder than it already is? Why invite the extra competition that you don’t need?
The more you are prideful about your accomplishments, the more you are likely to boast about it. Even if you are saying it in a matter of fact manner, people will see that as boasting and bragging. Pride is bad because it invites unwanted attention more than you know. Don’t become a target.
3) You Judge More Quickly
Pride makes you evaluate whether you are inferior or superior to someone else. If you graduated from an Ivy League school, you may unconsciously look down on someone who graduated from community college. Someone may not be as far ahead in life as you are, which makes you feel superior to someone else.
Humans are equal. Just because you have more man-made accomplishments, it doesn’t mean that you are better than someone else. Be happy that you are doing well but there’s no need to compare yourself to someone else. Judging is bad because people oftentimes judge incorrectly.
They let their feelings and emotions get in the way of business. People who have a need to feel good about themselves try their hardest to look for flaws in others. They have a need to feel superior and better. That’s bad. There’s no need to feel or know that you are superior to someone else.
Your life is already so busy enough. Focus on other things.
How can Pride Ruin Your Life?
So then now that we know that pride is bad, let’s get into how pride can ruin you. It hurts you in more ways than one and sometimes, you don’t even realize it hurts you. Let’s go over the concrete ways in which in can.
1) Others are Less Willing to Talk to You
If you talk about how great you are all the time, people are less willing to talk to you. Sure, they don’t mind celebrating your achievements from time to time. People love to support others. However, if the conversation revolves solely around how great you are, it turns people off.
They may already know how good you are but they don’t want or need a constant reminder. Deep down, they feel like you are only saying that to let others know that you are better than them. No one wants to help someone else who has that kind of attitude. Sure, you may not need their help by the end of your life.
However, if you could make a friend versus an enemy, why not make a friend? The older you get, the more you realize that having more friends is better. Don’t turn others off by consistently talking about your achievements. There are many more other interesting topics to talk about and connect with others on.
2) Reality Will Sting You
When you let pride get in the way of the truth, reality hits you harder than normal. When you think you did absolutely great and the feedback comes out negative, you question yourself more than ever. Compare that to if you think you just did OK and whatever happens, happens. If there’s a rejection, it doesn’t matter to you as much.
This is a hard lesson to learn for anyone. We naturally think and feel that we are a good, capable, and competent person. We generally are but sometimes we’re not. Even Warren Buffett, who practices constant humility, felt the sting of reality. He thought he was a shoo in to get into Harvard. Harvard promptly rejected him.
One higher-up I talked to admitted he was one of the most arrogant person you will meet when he was younger. Then his manager sat him down and talked to him. His manager said, “if you keep up with this kind of attitude.. You’re going to face a glass ceiling”. He finally got the message and toned it down.
However, it took him years to learn that fact before he eventually stopped. It’s a bad habit that everyone needs to grow out of.
3) You Think the World Owes You Something
Pride makes you think that you’re such a great person. You’re a special gift to the world so the world should pave the way for you! That’s not how it works. The world will never pave the way for you. You have to pave the way for the world. If you don’t add value to someone else, they’re not going to give anything to you.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. We have to earn our place in the world. Almost no one starts at the top. You can rarely get yourself in a situation where people give something for nothing. The only ones who are willing to do that are your family members.
If people give you something, they expect something in return. That’s how it works. The world doesn’t owe you anything. Pride is bad because it misguides you into thinking otherwise. Almost everyone starts at the bottom. You have to work your way up and prove yourself to others along the way.
4) You Don’t Correctly Blame the Cause
Pride is bad because you may not actually blame yourself. When you don’t blame yourself, it doesn’t cause you to actually learn from your mistakes. I’m not saying everything bad in your life is your fault. It’s not. However, we control our actions the most than anyone else’s actions.
Therefore, it’s better and easier to blame yourself and think about how you could have adjusted to come out on top. Rather than expecting someone else to adjust to you so that you come out on top. Incorrect blaming is bad but correct blaming is good. When you add emotions in the mix, you don’t actually figure out the root cause.
When you add your own ego, pride, and emotions into the blaming process, what are the chances you will blame yourself? Or let others know that they should blame you? The chances are less than low. It’s almost nonexistent. Take the emotions out of it and look at it from a business problem.
How are you going to solve the business problem? Don’t mix ego into the problem.
5) You Care About How You Look to Others More Than Who You Are
You can’t help but compare yourself to others. Doing it from time to time is completely normal and understandable. However, once it starts making you feel like you want to keep up with the Joneses, that’s when it’s bad. You start to care about how you look to others rather than who you actually are.
You are caring about other people’s opinions and thoughts. Which is a waste of time. Who cares whether you wear tattered clothing out in public and people are judging you for it? Is it keeping you warm? Do you like wearing the shirt? Are you comfortable in it?
If the answers are yes, then does it matter that the next guy in line has a Gucci shirt on? Don’t care about how you look to others. If a solution looks stupid but it works, then it’s not stupid. Appearance is on a surface level and not on a deeper level. Don’t care about the book cover but care about the content.
That’s what’s going to matter over the long run anyway.
It’s OK to Have Moderate Pride
Now, this doesn’t mean that all pride is bad. Some are actually good. It’s OK to be quietly proud of your work. It’s OK to feel great about how far you came in life. Celebrate the little wins as much as the big wins. It’s when you start to let it get to your head that it becomes a problem.
Everything is fine in moderation. When my company gives me a better than expected bonus, I get elated and happy about it. When I hit a new net worth high, I get happy about it. However, I don’t get so happy about it that I start to shout it at the top of my lungs to my friends. I don’t want to do that.
I do get happy about it that I treat myself to a nice dinner I otherwise wouldn’t have bought. And keep the rest to grow and for my future self to enjoy. It’s OK to be happy with your accomplishments and have pride. You are actually quite allowed, if not encouraged, to be happy with what you achieved.
Why work so hard if you’re never going to recognize the results that come out of it? That would be a pointless and fruitless venture. No one in the personal finance community doesn’t think that you should celebrate and be proud of how far you came. No one thinks that at all.
Things in moderation is a good thing. We’re all human and we can’t shut down our emotions at the touch of our fingers just like that. Toast to your good life from time to time. You deserve it.
Pride is Bad if You Have Too Much of It
Pride is bad when you let that sun shine so bright that it ends up permanently blinding you. We know the age old debate between glass is half full and half empty. When you have too much of it, you don’t think the glass is half full. You think the glass is all full all of the time.
That’s not real life. Life is never all great all the time. For every single one of us, even the rich ones and the genetically gifted. Some days are just better than others and you will have bad days. When you have too much ego, it stops you from seeing reality. That’s not good.
Don’t have too much of it. There’s a healthy amount of ego everyone should have but when it edges into overconfidence, smug, and arrogance that’s when it’s bad. When I was in college, I took a class as a 17 year old competing against Sophomores who were 19/20 years old.
Therefore, I thought I was so special because I crushed the first exam. The second exam came along and I actually got my first C+. After the curve, it was more like a B+ but it still stung. I never got a C on an exam before in my entire life. That was my first brutal lesson of the harsh reality setting in.
I’m only as good as the amount of effort that I put in. There’s no innate differentiation between me or somebody else. It’s just based on how many hours we were willing to put in to study. That’s when I realized that I shouldn’t attribute my successes to me. It’s something that I have to consistently work for.
No one is going to hand you wins, you’re going to have to earn it yourself.
Great post. I’ve been reading about stoicism recently and I think it’s important to develop the self awareness needed to overcome destructive emotions like having too much pride. I’ve been a victim of my own hubris at times. I’ve also mistaken my own hard work for luck. It can be difficult to find the right balance between the two, haha.