✨Word of Wonder✨ Pride

Definition:
Pride is a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.

But pride also has a darker edge—an inflated sense of self-worth that resists correction, collaboration, and humility. It blinds us to our own shortcomings while magnifying the faults of others.

To my newest reckoning: The Pedestal Crumbles.

Let me be clear—I don’t think pride is always a bad thing. There’s a good kind of pride: the kind that stands tall after you’ve worked hard, sacrificed, grown, bled. That kind of pride is rooted in dignity. It’s the satisfaction of knowing you’ve overcome something that tried to break you. It’s standing in the mirror and saying, “You made it.”

That’s not the pride I’m talking about.

The pride I’m writing about is something else entirely.

It’s a seductive voice that whispers, “You’re above correction.”
A quiet smirk that says, “You already know better.”
It’s the sly arrogance that builds a pedestal out of thin air and demands others admire it—even as it begins to crack at the base.

That kind of pride is hollow. A mask with no face.

When pride becomes your compass, you’re not navigating life—you’re avoiding the mirror. You’re drifting, charting a course away from growth, away from connection. And I’ve done that. More than once.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
— Proverbs 16

I used to think strength meant never admitting weakness. I wore pride like armor—thick, polished, untouchable. But armor, no matter how strong, does one thing very well: it keeps everything out.

Love can’t get in.
Grace can’t get in.
Truth can’t get in.

When your whole identity is built on being right, what happens when you're not?
What happens when the mask slips?

I’ve been there. Alone in my silence, surrounded by all the bridges I burned to prove a point. Because that’s what pride does—it isolates. It makes a throne of your own insecurity and crowns you king of nothing.

You become a ruler of ruins. A voice echoing in an empty hall.

“According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Think about that for a moment—the anti-God state of mind. That’s a sobering truth. Pride places self above all. It dethrones love, dismisses wisdom, and deafens the soul to conviction. It’s a counterfeit crown—flashy, but worthless.

There’s something tragic about always needing to be right.
It closes the door to learning.
It makes conversations into competitions.
It turns every disagreement into a battlefield and every suggestion into a threat.

I used to live that way.
I’d pretend to listen, just waiting for my turn to talk.
I’d nod while thinking, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I’d dismiss advice before I even heard it fully.

The irony? I was the one who needed help the most. But I had painted myself into such a corner of perfection that no one could reach me.

When you present yourself as always strong, always certain, always composed—people will believe you.
They’ll stop offering help.
They’ll stop asking how you’re really doing.
They’ll assume you’ve got it all figured out.
And you’ll be left screaming inside a house you built with walls made of pride.

It’s easy to hide behind pride.
It feels safe, controlled, almost noble at times.
But it’s a false refuge.
A castle made of mirrors—every wall just reflects your own distorted image back at you, again and again, until you don’t even recognize yourself.

And here’s the kicker: Pride rarely announces itself. It’s a quiet creeper. It seeps into your habits, your words, your tone. It builds a case for itself in your mind:

“They just don’t get it.”“I’m just confident, not arrogant.”“I’ve been through more than them—I know better.”

No.
That’s not wisdom.
That’s ego in a clever disguise, and remember the ego tells us lies.

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
— James 46

There’s a pattern I’ve noticed in myself. When pride is driving, I react more than I reflect. I talk more than I listen. I correct more than I connect. I harden where I should soften, and defend what I should admit, what I should own.

Every time I’ve fallen hard in life, I can trace the thread of pride somewhere in the weave.
It was there when I refused to ask for help.
It was there when I hurt people I loved just to prove a point.
It was there when I pushed away the very grace I was praying for—because I didn’t like the form it arrived in.

Pride is a thief.
It robs us of intimacy, vulnerability, and transformation.

And what it gives in return is brittle: a fragile sense of superiority, always needing validation, always threatened by correct

So here’s where I’m at today:
I’m trying to stop treating life like a stage.
I’m stepping down from the pedestal—because I was never meant to stand on one in the first place.

I don’t want pride to steer anymore.
It can sit in the backseat, whisper its nonsense if it wants, but it doesn’t get the wheel.

Here’s my new motto:
“I might be right, but I’m still listening.”
And someday, I hope I can say,
“I was wrong, and I’m grateful you showed me.”

I’ll be honest—I’m not there yet. Not fully. But I’m closer than I’ve ever been.

If you’re reading this and seeing yourself in any of it, I want you to know you’re not alone. And you’re not broken beyond repair. Pride may have built some walls, but those walls can come down. Brick by brick. Word by word. Apology by apology.

I want to thank all of you—my readers and friends—for continuing this journey with me. I love you all! This isn’t a sermon. It’s a confession. A mirror I’m holding up for myself and anyone else who’s tired of performing.

If this resonated with you, I ask just one thing:
Share this with someone who might need to step off their own pedestal.
And if you’ve got a reflection, a quote, a lesson learned—I’d love to hear it.
Email me directly at theaveragebenjamin@averagebenjamin.com or message the Facebook page “Average Benjamin.”

We don’t need pedestals.
We need community.
We need grace.
We need each other.

Together we are perfectly average, and that’s more than enough.

Kind regards,

averagebenjamin

I pray for the strength to step down, for the clarity to see myself rightly, and for the courage to grow through the fall.

Amen.