Society's Serious Misconception of Pride

Good morning, everybody! Hope everything has been going well for you so far. I actually found this post in some old drafts and thought it'd be a good one to finish for today. In relation to the context I give about my life, it's a little bit outdated, but it is definitely one of those that I really want to finish. I hope you like it!

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I don't know if any of you guys have seen my vlog channel (there's some embarrassing and what I like to believe is funny/entertaining stuff on there), but recently I started doing a 365-Day Bible Reading Plan, which is the highlight of the vlog below:

A special friend and I have started a Bible Reading Journal together to hold each other accountable and to also keep track of our discussions. Reading the Bible has become a part of my routine that I've started looking forward to a lot and I've been getting so much out of meditating on God's word. So if you've thought about reading the whole Bible but never got around to doing so, please check out the video above for a solid reading plan that's been keeping me on track so far!

Anyhow, my friend and I read a section in Isaiah that I just haven't been able to get out of my mind and heart:

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" (Isaiah 5:20-21, New King James Version)

It's easy to look at these words and think, "Okay, this is sort of melodramatic and Bible-sounding" and go on reading, but if that was mild, the rest of that night's reading took a sharp turn for shocking intensity.

God says to Isaiah the prophet: "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10).

Uhhhh, God say what?

This was something that we wrestled with because it shows a side of God that is ostensibly contradictory to what we know about him. But after a bit of research, we see that it's basically a prophecy that foreshadows what'll happen to the prideful.

I feel like this can often conflict with what we're taught in society these days. Society tells us to have pride in our work, pride in our actions, pride in our nation, pride in our kids, pride in our achievements. Especially while in college, as there is so much competition among peers, I've found myself taking pride in my own accomplishments, too.

But, pride is blinding.

If you are proud in your work, how will you be humble enough to try to improve? If you're proud in your achievements, what is truly the motivation behind your actions? If you're prideful in your nation, how do you know if problems are arising, or not being solved?

Pride makes our hearts dull. It closes our ears to that conscience, and shuts our eyes against what is right.

Swallowing that pride is what we need to do before we can truly wise and discerning.

There should be a distinction between pride and love. You can show love through what you do, and you can love doing what you do. 

When I contrast these two things, love is giving your talents to share with others, whereas pride is holding your talents for yourself. Love is everything that pride isn't: patient, kind, pure. Pride is blindness.

Have you ever been in an argument where you've been in the wrong? If you apologized, why did you? (And if you didn't apologize, why didn't you? Haha.) When you apologize, it is admitting that you did something wrong. Really, you're putting your pride aside because you are deciding that your relationship is more important. In a way, when you express apology and/or forgiveness, you're choosing love over pride.

So if you're harboring resentment against somebody, or if there is any tension, think about the causes. Has another person seriously harmed you. Is pride too big for forgiveness?

And I suppose that we can also consider our motivations for doing what we do. Is it to share our talents with others, or to only uplift ourselves? When we are prideful, what else in life are we missing?

Just a bit of food for thought for this week. Please let me know all your reactions and insights in the comments below!

Smile on,
-Riley XO

Truth vs. Truths?

Happy April! Apologies for not writing to you last week. I was a college student on Spring Break and was busy conducting shenanigans. I was also training harder than I ever have in my life to be ready for a competition that is coming up this next weekend (and working ahead so that I won't fall terribly behind after missing two days of classes). It just hit me how quickly this school year is coming to a close. What incredible and insane time it has been! How has your year been so far? Let me know in the comments!

So I don't know if you're familiar with a philosopher named Nietzsche. I for one am not. But, today my Ethics professor introduced us to his thoughts and I just wanted to mull it all over for a bit. I remember learning a bit about Nietzsche when I studied Western Civilization. He is often portrayed as the pessimistic philosopher and is associated strongly with his words "God is dead" as well as nihilism.

A small taste of nihilism for you. And dat mustache doe!
quotefail.com

To be honest, I expected the introduction to Nietzsche's philosophy to be more on the depressing than intriguing side--but this was not so!

Nietzsche actually made a point that piqued my interest. He was criticizing some of his philosophical predecessors, but what I thought was truly--well--true is that he states that a lot of the great philosophers had built their philosophies around what they had experienced in their lives. Essentially, what Aristotle, Epictetus, Mill, and others wrote was an "unconscious autobiography." For instance, Aristotle considered the right way to live as pursuing a life of study/reason. But, he himself was a philosopher--so of course he would think that studying was the highest good! Or Epictetus believed that happiness was only attainable by concerning oneself only with what one could control. You can't control others' actions, but you can control your own, so happiness can be found when your actions reflect solid morality and are done with dignity. However, Epictetus was a crippled slave. The only way he could find happiness was by accepting his situation and making the most out of what he could control.

Nietzsche argues that, contrary to many of his predecessors, there is not just One Truth, but many truths. What is true for you is shaped largely by what has happened to you. There could be an identical occurrence that happens to me and you--yet I could take away completely different lessons than the ones you discover. So does that make either one of our realities less accurate? Of course not--reality is subjective!

I just found this point so fascinating because it drove me to reflect on my beliefs, and to see how they match up with what has happened to me in my past and how I had learned to cope during the difficult times. And I wanted to share this with you, because a lot of what I write for this blog does in a sense represent my unconscious autobiography.

What are some of the things in your life that have affected your beliefs, or vice versa? Please share in the comments. I would love to hear what inspires and drives you--we can always grow and learn from each other by striking up a conversation in all that empty space below!

Take care,
-Riley XO

Hmmm, time to come up with a good prank to surprise my roommate!  :P

The Virtue of Happiness

Hello there, how have you been? Last week, I had a philosophical moment in one of my vlogs, which is embedded here below. (It begins toward the end if you wanted to fast forward to there.)

I'm currently taking and introductory ethics course, and my professor describes the content as "learning how to live your life." She is probably one of my favorite professors this semester; she has a cat, loves clean chalk boards, and does her best to be kind to all of her students.

We're currently studying Aristotle, whose Nicomachean Ethics describes living a happy life. How does one define happiness? How is happiness attained? How do we know if a person has achieved living a happy life?

Well, there are many interpretations for the definition of happiness, but Aristotle says that it is essentially living a full life. His term for this sense of a flourishing life is eudimonia.

Although happiness can be attained through many ways, eudimonia is something much more distinctive. Aristotle would argue that humans are unique from all other things of the universe because they are able to practice eudimonia. Plants and animals live and experience pain and pleasure, but only humans can pursue a full life. Humans have a working conscience that sets us apart from the world. This is so important because this is our purpose. Since we are the only ones on Earth that can think intellectually, it is up to us to improve our knowledge constructively.

On Aristotle's terms, we must exercise rational activity in a virtuous manner. Basically, virtuous person will do the right thing at the right time for the right reason and in the right way. Virtue is done for its own sake, and good people exercise virtue for its own sake.

And what is virtuous can be pinpointed through the Doctrine of the Mean. (Mean as in average, not rudeness.)

Take confidence, for example. If you have too much confidence, you're arrogant. But if you don't have enough confidence, you will miss opportunities that you otherwise have the skills to attain. This could apply to nearly every personality trait, and it's unique to each situation or case.

There's something really harmonious about the Doctrine of the Mean. Do you think it's a good way to find happiness? Let me know in the comments below!

Take care,
-Riley XO