Intro

As men, and especially as young men, one great challenge for the overwhelming majority of us is the bad kind of pride. This pride is strongly averse to the manifestation of any kind of weakness – whether in body, in mind or in soul. The unspoken rule for us is “Thou shalt not appear weak.”  The symptoms of this affliction are plenty.

Not-so Short Exercise 24

Evaluate yourself on whether you test positive for this bad pride.

  1. Do I lie?  (Lies usually are to hide embarrassing state of facts i.e. weaknesses or failures.)
  2. Do I know how to apologise e.g. for being late or for lying?  (An apology is an admission of a failure.)
  3. If I do apologise, do my apologies usually include an excuse or justification e.g. “Sorry I’m late, but yo!  Traffic today was crazy mazee!”  (The excuse or justification effectively annuls the apology.  It says, “Sad I failed on this point, but you should understand I couldn’t do otherwise.  It’s not really my fault.”)
  4. Do I withhold my falls and failures from my mentor, life coach or spiritual director? (Usually this is to avoid tarnishing the good opinion he may have of you.  For Catholics, this includes withholding such details in confession ostensibly not to “scandalise” the priest.  It is as nonsensical as hiding your symptoms from the doctor.)
  5. Equally as corrupting is postponing or staying away from the doctor, mentor, confessor “until I improve” in some point or other.  (“I got this.  I don’t need a mentor or confessor or spiritual director.  It’s under control.”)
  6. Do I refuse or (worse) ignore help from people around me?  (“I’m a man!  I should be able to do it on my own!”  The help could be, for example, advice or indications from my supervisor, mentor, local bishop or boss that we choose to ignore because “I’ll do it my way!”)
  7. Do I ignore helping my friends in matters to do with the body, the mind or the soul? (We ignore usually because it is a bother for us.  However we may rationalise this type of indifference, this is effectively the same as saying, “My comfort is more important than your improvement in body, in mind or in soul.  I am more important than you.”)

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