Pride is the universal sin; of course. I never really came to this conclusion with that same certainty and conviction, until I really opined about the nature of pride. How many times I've felt it, I've shown it, and expressed it
Pride is a false safety net for our imitation conscience, that our spirit truly rejects. It's something that gives us a false sense of happiness, or contentment, that is so close to real happiness, and real contentment, it's incredibly easy to believe you're feeling one when you're feeling the other.
We get prideful about lots of silly things. We're prideful of our money. We're prideful of our stuff. We're prideful of our righteousness, ironic as that is. Heck, we're even prideful of our own humility. And we see all these things as just a means of increasing our own 'standing', or some invisible rank of success we give ourselves. We think we're better than others because we have more money, or more stuff, or because we're more "righteous", or more "humble".
We see everyone else as a threat with pride. You can't truly love anyone when your filled with it. Pride is by nature competitive.
If I was to engage you in conversation about your faith, and you had a different belief on certain things than I do, pride can manifest itself quite easily. I say to you that you cannot base your belief on faith alone, but it has to also logically and by comparison to other faiths, make sense. You believe, however, that faith alone is all you need, and logical reasoning can only lead us to the false ramblings of men, which will ultimately lead you astray. We argue and argue this point, until the conversation abruptly ends, and we both walk away dissatisfied with the outcome. But pride, of course, brings us back to some level of false contentment. I walk away thinking "how silly, you would blindly walk in faith. You have no ability to think for yourself, like I do. I know so much more than you, how much more understanding I have." Whilst you, also filled with pride, walk away thinking "what a fool. Faith is all you need, and because I walk in faith, God favors my diligence. How much closer to heaven I must be." When, of course, how far away we are from the heavens is probably immeasurable.
But humans, in their best moments, know what it feels like to feel no pride at all. To truly lose themselves. It's times like that that we feel truly happy. It's that feeling of joy that comes only in special moments, when we see everyone around us as friends and teachers, loved ones and helpers, brothers and sisters. When we remember that life is simply for happiness sake, not for some kind of invisible status climbing. It's moments like these that make the gates of Hell crumble, because for that moment in time, we truly and incontestably beat Satan. He cannot tempt what is not prideful.
But pride sneaks it's way in very quickly after such moments, thus insuring such moments sparsity. And life again becomes some endless rat race to become the best, the richest, the most righteous, the highest of the high. When all we're doing is digging our own hole downward.
Pride is the universal sin; of course. Not one human is not guilty of it, in fact, I'm probably guilty of some sort of pride right now. Probably dozens of instances of pride all throughout my day. Infinite amounts of pride throughout my lifetime. But to beat pride is to win everything. To lose yourself is to have eternal life. I can think back to the last time I remember feeling absolutely happy. And of course, it happened when myself didn't matter.
Because it's not about me.
And it will never be about me, no matter how much I like to act like it is.
Life is truly lived when life is only lived for the sake of living it.
When what we have is not just good enough but everything we could ever want. When blessings are recognized every moment,
When we truly love our neighbor, because we envy, we covet, we long for nothing.
Because life is only truly lived when life is not about yourself.
