The Silent Killer

We all have an achilles heel. Mine would be my Pride. It is something that I know and admit openly. If you don’t know what the phrase your “achilles heel” means, it means that it is something of my greatest strength but also is my greatest weakness… A balancing effect….

Pride is my greatest strength because my pride is what keeps me going. I have been through a lot of bullshit in life. We all have. I don’t feel the need to go into sob stories because we all got a story. And that’s not the important part. The important part is that without my pride I would have never had the ability to keep it going. To keep on moving from any hurt or pain that I suffer. My pride is what keeps me going everyday. There ain’t nothing that I can’t do. There ain’t nothing that I can’t heal from. There ain't nothing that I can’t shake. Without my pride, I am nothing. 

But as I said, pride is also my greatest weakness. Pride holds me back from admitting to myself and to others that I am hurt. Pride holds me back from speaking my truest thoughts and feelings because I am scared to become vulnerable to others. Pride holds me back because it allows me to become defense. And my actions become on the defense as well. Pride holds me back from admitting to my family when I need help. Pride keeps me from showing my soft side to others because I never want anyone to use it as a weakness against me. Pride is a weakness.

When you think about it, Pride is also the silent killer in relationships too. When two people are prideful, they both start talking at each other rather than listening to each other. When two people are prideful, it allows them to lose the insight that they are a team, and therefore become competitors. Pride is what makes people refuse to compromise on their partner's needs. If a partner says that they don’t like when the other raises their voice at them. Instead of realizing that your person is not saying to you to be a bitch, to nag, or to even complain. What they’re telling you is, “Hey, when you yell at me, it doesn’t make me feel good at all. It brings back past trauma and hurt and it makes me feel insignificant. And I’m only telling you this because I love you so much and I don’t want to cause you pain, just like I know you don’t want to cause any pain of mine.” If the other person wasn’t prideful, what they would realize and say to themselves that, “I love this person so much, and if yelling hurts her, that’s a trauma I don’t want to be a part of…Me not raising my voice does not harm me or make me lesser of an individual. So this is something that I can definitely do to help my partner, and in turn, help our relationship.” 

…It’s too bad that pride exists. I feel like we would all be kinder to each other if we all didn’t have pride. It can be a strength, yes, but I think that pride can do more harm than good. It will allow you to keep going in life without fully processing your emotions, without taking accountability…. It allows us to continue to lie to ourselves and others, creating delusions to justify our actions. That is why there is so much miscommunication in this world….

I have come a long way with my pride. It is something that I am actively working on to grow and better myself…. To allow me to become more at one with myself: my inner thoughts and my actions.