That’s a thing, right? The good kind of pride? Like I’m proud to be a member of Christ’s restored Church. I’m proud to be Jim and Traci Blair’s daughter. (Can’t currently say I’m proud to be an American, but I trust I will soon be able to. And I’m GRATEFUL to my ancestors who sacrificed so much to come here!) I’m proud to have served in the California Los Angeles Mission under the leadership of President and Sister Weidman. I’m proud to be an ordinance worker at the Salt Lake temple.
So I’m thinking hubris pride, which Ezra Taft Benson said is the root of all sin, is definitely not good. But the kind of pride where we recognize we’ve got a good thing going and we’re fully invested– not hubris– seems to be productive and good.
I was thinking about this on my morning run yesterday. I had been planning to do a 20-miler, because my next marathon is in a few weeks. I was feeling fantastic the whole run, and then my back started killing me, so I ended up only running 10 miles. Rather than being proud of myself for getting up at 5:30 to run, or being proud of the really solid 10 miles I did, I felt ashamed that I hadn’t been able to do what I’d been planning on. I was embarrassed that I didn’t run 20 miles.
What the heck. 10 miles is awesome! It’s 10 miles more than most people ran yesterday! I’d like to work on being proud of myself for my effort, rather than beating myself up for not being as good or as fast or as perfect as I’d like to be. As my dad says, the victory is that I made it out the door.