Pride And Anger...

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Sometimes, I wonder how people have little control over their anger. Like, every little thing sets them off, and they’re ready to bring down an entire building just because they’re in a rage. It can be so disheartening to witness. I’ve seen people land in prison or lose out on a life-changing contract simply because they couldn’t control their anger. Something that could have been avoided, or treated more civilly, ended up changing their lives forever.

But then, is anger the only culprit? Nah… there’s also pride. Now, a good dose of pride is essential for every human, because if you don’t have it, people will walk all over you. Pride gives you standards and allows you to set boundaries, and makes sure that no one crosses them. However, once your pride starts working against your own growth, then there is a big problem.

People have let some stupid pride work against their favor. I’ve seen someone who lost his job because he couldn’t stand taking orders from his boss, who was significantly younger. It’s not as if the boss was even rude to him; the person just felt like, since he was older, he was smarter and he knew better than the boss. So, when the boss gave instructions on what he wanted, he always countered them, making it seem like the boss didn’t know what he was doing. And when the boss tried to call him out on it, he told him point-blank that he couldn’t be taking instructions from someone young enough to be his son. Well, that marked his last day at the job.

So, there is pride, and there is anger, both of which are destructive in their own right. However, the combination of both is something that destroys not just the person harboring them, but whatever it is that they’re involved in. Someone with both wouldn’t mind hurting themselves if it meant making a point. They’re willing to show everyone just how superior they are, even if this means they take a major loss in the process.

Sadly, we see people like this every day, and we have them everywhere. Back when I was in ND, it was time for us to elect our General Course Rep, and those who actually wanted the office were told to show interest. However, only one guy showed interest, but nobody liked him because by the short time we had already spent together, everyone knew him to be extremely toxic. So no one wanted him as the leader. While no one said it out loud, it was like an open secret that everyone knew but no one could openly acknowledge.

He didn’t like it, though, and he made it clear. When we were told to nominate possible leaders so we could host elections, he exempted himself and refused to take part. He didn’t take part in the elections either. Because as far as we didn’t see him worthy of being a leader, we shouldn’t expect him to be a follower either. But he didn’t just stop there, he developed this annoying “Us vs Them” mentality. When he spoke about the Course Reps, he addressed them as “Your Course Reps”, not “Our Course Reps”.

However, none of us really cared about all that. School was going great as usual, but this guy ended up taking things a bit far. He started trying to divide us; he would open separate group chats, and he would report Course Reps to their lecturers, making little matters into major issues. It got so bad that at one point, we were having issues with multiple lecturers because of this guy. But we couldn’t do anything because he was just a student like us. We had to report the case to our departmental president.

It was painful that this guy had been ready to doom the whole class, including himself, simply because we didn’t want him as a leader. However, we managed to fix it. With the President, the Course Reps went to all the lecturers and told them that the guy wasn’t our mouthpiece. He became a pariah after that, because he was nothing but trouble. He tried to use us to curry favor with the lecturers, but they all saw him for what he was. After ND, he didn’t return for HND.

So, as I say, the combination of anger and pride is very dangerous, and we need to be careful of people who have them. And even more annoying, they don’t see anything wrong with their actions and the steps that they take. They find it justifiable. Let us all get into trouble, instead of doing this my way. That’s their mentality. It’s just like sending your team into open battle without any bulletproof vests because they don’t want your kind of bulletproof vest. It’s crazy.

Like I said, anger has killed so many people and landed so many more in prison. Pride has destroyed homes and sent many into poverty. For some, even saying sorry and thank you would be difficult for them, and at any slight provocation, they’re ready to throw blows.

We live in a crazy world, man. And it’s really scary.

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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