Episode 53: Pride Destroys Pleasure

What in life deserves our time and attention, and what things don't? I hope that as we consider that question, along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - "Pride Destroys Pleasure."

Our pride is tied up in the picture we create of ourselves. It's what we see when we look into the mirror of the mind. But in truth, the whole thing is made up. We are not the person in our imagination. If we could eliminate this perception of ourselves, we would be free of pride. And pride is effectively the fence we build up around us.

It acts as our guide for how we think we should move around in this world. The issue is that when we invent this image, we build in things that we cannot really control, such as, I am a winner, or I am strong, or I am good at A, B, or C. You may be all of those things, but you are not all of those things all the time, and you likely did not start that way.

It struck me a while back when I heard the phrase, Pride destroys pleasure. Because it was something I'd never thought of before, it resonated as much as I hate to admit  it I am one of the most prideful people I know and it has been a ball and chain my entire life There are plenty of areas in my life where pride does not get in the way where it may for another person But where my pride does get in the way it stands there like Gandalf the Grey and will not let me pass I don't know where pride comes from because I see some people, for better or for worse, willing to do things my pride would never allow me to.

One area of my life where pride has taken its toll is with sports. I love intense physical activities, but I find it near impossible to play in competitive sports. Everyone knows a few people in their lives that are just too competitive when they play sports. The only reason that guy is not me is because I am so competitive, I refuse to engage, and if I do, I never take the game seriously.

My pride has effectively robbed me of one of the best experiences life has to offer. And my refusal to take that risk hurt nobody other than myself. When we're stuck in our heads worrying about how we're going to appear, there is no room for the rest of the body to experience any kind of pleasure. If the whole time you are playing a game and are worrying all the time about performing poorly, you will not enjoy yourself.

If you are afraid to look dumb while you're dancing, you will probably never dance. And if and when you do, you will almost certainly look dumb. Your pride will have robbed you. Even physical intimacy can be completely destroyed by allowing our focus to drift to performance. There is so much to be gained in the giving up of pride.

It is the potential to live for once in the moment and not to be stuck worried about the future. When we're thinking about our reputation or how we appear, we lose the gifts life has to offer. It's easy to think that life is meant to be a slog and that we're intended to simply endure through it, but I honestly believe life gives far more than it takes, if we're willing to take the gifts it has to offer.

Although, few of us would ever know that because most of the time we choose not to take what life has to offer when it's trying to give it to us. Typically, we're thinking too much about how things will play out tomorrow, or how they may affect our image. Our pride robs us of pleasure when it tells us we have to be good at sports, but reality requires us to see that we are not always as good as we thought.

It robs us of pleasure when our pride tells us we are a good person and then fills us full of guilt or blinds us to our shortcomings when we occasionally do make mistakes. Pride even ruins the days that you are winning by depriving you of the joy of having won. And replacing it with the simple relief that you didn't lose.

What's the point of chasing after good things if you can't even appreciate them? You know who doesn't have pride? Children. I like to joke that I could give my kids trash for Christmas and they would be ecstatic. Without your pride telling you that You only enjoy certain things. The world opens up again.

When I find myself learning something or playing a game without my pride in tow, messing up or losing is part of the fun. It's fun to see if we can do better and, in that moment, where you win the game or figure out that thing you were trying to learn, the excitement is real and incredible. Growing up, my family had a foosball table in the house.

And I got pretty good. In fact, I rarely lost. But one day, we had a party at my house, and there was a kid that showed up that I didn't know very well. Much to my disappointment, when I started playing foosball against him, he quickly started to win. And the joy of the game slowly turned to a fight to preserve my self  image as an unbeatable foosball player.

That stupid little soccer ball just kept going into my goal. And ultimately I lost that game. We don't need to tie our pride to stupid things like foosball, but really we don't need to tie our pride to anything. We're not the image we've created in our mind. All we really are is an observer in this existence that has been gifted with the ability to act.

Yet we spend so much time in our lives planning and strategizing to achieve a life that fits that picture we have of ourselves. But in creating that picture, we're building unnecessary pain. Pride starts the moment we start believing things about ourself. It's the moment we tell ourselves we're a good person, or that we're a smart person, or that we're tough.

You are none of those things, no matter how badly you want to be. At certain moments in time, you have been those things, but those are descriptors of things that have happened and are not applicable to anything that hasn't happened. Maybe you are sitting in your car right now, and maybe you are on the couch.

In either of those scenarios, you are not being tough, smart, or good. You are listening to a podcast, and that is all you are in that moment. Good qualities are things to strive for, but we want to treat them like immortal titles for our personhood. They may be applicable titles most of the time, but when we attach our pride to them, they can easily become prisons.

It's far more accurate to say that You are striving to be good, or that you aim to make smart decisions, or that you are going to try to be tough. When you picture yourself the way you want to be in your mind, just don't confuse it for what you are, because you are not your body, or your brain, or anything else you're envisioning.

You are the spark that gives the whole assembly a reason to move. It's better to let your mind and body be used to fuel that spark with pleasure, joy, and happiness than it is to stifle it forever with guilt, shame, embarrassment, and insecurity. "Pride destroys pleasure." This is Skipping Stones. You can find this podcast on iTunes.

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