Pride

A few words about pride, as distinguished from self-esteem. Pride is a unique kind of pleasure. Pride is the emotional reward of achievement. It is not a vice to be overcome but a value to be attained.

If self-esteem pertains to the experience of our fundamental competence and value, pride pertains to the more explicitly conscious pleasure we take in ourselves because of our actions and achievements. Self-esteem contemplates what needs to be done and says "I can." Pride contemplates what has been accomplished and says "I did."

Authentic pride has nothing in common with bragging, boasting, or arrogance. It comes from an opposite root. Not emptiness but satisfaction is its wellspring. It is not out to "prove" but to enjoy. Nor is pride the delusion that we are without flaws or shortcomings (as religionists sometimes suggest). We can take pride in what we have done or what we have made of ourselves while acknowledging our errors and imperfections. We can feel pride while owning and accepting what Jungians call our "Shadow." In short, pride in no way entails obliviousness to reality. Pride is the emotional reward of achievement. It is not a vice to be overcome but a value to be attained.

Does achievement always result in pride? Not necessarily, as the following story illustrates.

The head of a medium-sized company consulted me because, he said, although he had made a great success of his business, he was depressed and unhappy and could not understand why. We discovered that what he had always wanted to be was a research scientist but that he had abandoned that desire in deference to his parents, who pushed him toward a career in business. Not only was he unable to feel more than the most superficial kind of pride in his accomplishments but he was wounded in his self-esteem. The reason was not difficult to identify. In the most important issue of his life he had surrendered his mind and values to the wishes of others out of the wish to be "loved" and to "belong."

Clearly a still earlier self-esteem problem motivated such a capitulation. His depression reflected a lifetime of performing brilliantly while ignoring his deepest needs. While he operated within that framework, pride and satisfaction were beyond his reach. Until he was willing to challenge that framework, and to face the fear of doing so, no solution was possible.

This is an important point to understand, because we sometimes hear people say, "I have accomplished so much. Why don't I feel more proud of myself?" Although there are several reasons why someone may not enjoy his or her achievements, it can be useful to ask, "Who chose your goals? You, or the voice of some 'Significant other' inside you?" Neither pride nor self-esteem can be supported by the pursuit of secondhand values that do not reflect who we really are. But does anything take more courage - is anything more challenging and sometimes frightening than to live by our own mind, judgment, and values? Is not self-esteem a summons to the hero within us?

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