Not a Guest Blog: Pride and Humility--Haughty Eyes

Dear Readers, Good morning! I hope this blog post finds you well. I do see these posts as letters to friends—and to myself. I am finding that I choose the virtue for each month based on a Bible verse that hits a little too close to home.  I know that Pride is a besetting sin, but sometimes I can’t help myself?

Ah, the plight of a flawed human being—always something to be working on and trying to do better.

Proverbs: 6:16-17 (NIV): “There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hand that kill the innocent, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”

Not only are haughty eyes first in the list (not good), but it’s really the only one that I struggle with (It’s okay to be honest and recognize what we’re doing right—have to separate our own sheep from the goats).

Pride vs. Humility.

Matthew 23:12 (NIV): “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

For a very long time in Psychology research, humility was basically ignored. Psychology officially started in 1875, but no one really studied humility until the 2000s! Part of this is because the field focused on mental illness rather than virtue. Another part is because, as I mentioned last month, psychology has a long-standing tradition of anti-religion and humility was seen as biblical. Finally, there was this one time, in the 1980s, when Positive Psychology started,1 that the founders tested every virtue against what they believed to be the goal of human existence: happiness.

Humility doesn’t predict happiness.

So, they threw it out and didn’t study it again for decades.

Only, there’s this pesky problem of extreme self-esteem called narcissism. To me, that’s the ultimate version of pride—everything is about you and, if it’s not, it should be and you manipulate those around you to fix that problem. Narcissism definitely exists. In fact, researchers couldn’t deny that high scores on narcissism and self-esteem are dangerous.

So, why wouldn’t the opposite—humility—be important, too?

It turns out, it is. We just can’t ask people directly--others have to nominate the truly humble. Judith Tangney (2017) tried to say humility is just low self-esteem. It’s not.

Humility, instead, is thinking realistically about yourself, your skills, and your gifts. It’s not false modesty. That would fall in the category of lying. Humility is actually thinking more about others and less about yourself. What do they need? How can you serve them?

So, back to those haughty eyes. As a teacher, I need to correct mistakes, but I better be darn sure that I am not looking down on my students. They are God’s precious children.

He loves them.

He also loves me, and He sees me for exactly who I am—his flawed, beautiful creation.

So are you.

To close the loop, why wasn’t humility found to be important? I would argue that earthly happiness isn’t our end goal. Heaven is our destination.

Humility, not pride, predicts getting there.

PS. It's also perfectly wonderful to celebrate God's good gifts. Below is a picture of me and this year's Psychology Club officers and my fellow department members. They're holding the Academic Organization of the Year trophy. I'm so proud of them (in a good way :)!