Pride and Self-Contempt

It's this internal supposition of perfection that I talked about yesterday that Cooper proposes is the link between pride and self-contempt.

I (speaking strictly hypothetically here, of course...I never actually struggle with any of these things myself) might be struggling mightily in my daily life with low self-worth. I kick myself for my flaws that seem so glaring to me. I rehearse over and over again the things that I don't like about myself: my social awkwardness, my innate lack of intelligence, my physical appearance, and on and on.

But lurking beneath those voices of self-contempt is a pride system. Namely, that I should be nearly flawless in those areas. If I hate my social awkwardness, it belies that my assumption is that I should be socially flawless. If I hate how dumb I am (or how dumb I appear to be to me and those who have been kind enough to point out my stupidity) it belies that my internal standard is that I would be perfectly intelligent--perhaps in every area.

Cooper points out that the root word of arrogance is arrogate, which means to ascribe to oneself qualities that one does not have. This, he says, is the issue with our areas of self-contempt. We create an idealized self (see my post from last week about this) that torments us by ascribing to ourselves qualities of perfection that we do not have. We take perhaps root qualities or abilities that we do have and blow them up exponentially. We then kick ourselves for not living up to that impossible internal bar of perfection.

In effect, we fail to allow ourselves to be human. We cannot stand ourselves because we cannot live up to the idealized self that we have created in our own imaginations as a tool to navigate our own shortcomings. A complex pride system is at the root of our self-hatred. Both of which must be dealt with, repented of, or they will torment us our whole lives