A Battle of Humility vs. Pride at Work - 2

We pick up from last time with a personal tale of a battle of humility vs. pride at work.  As mentioned, a few weeks ago, I neglected to post on a Tuesday. For reasons previously explained, it was a big deal - for me, that is.

If you read this blog, you know weekday posts are Tuesday and Thursday, with a supplemental Sunday entry. The weekday posts are intended to focus on work, specifically how we can supernaturalize our work, or turn our daily labor into prayer, or incorporate work and our spiritual life. Take your pick.

For years - as in YEARS - these have appeared on Tuesday and Thursday without fail.

So the big deal was, upon reflection, the work of pride. Frankly, did it really matter to the reader? Unlikely. So it was all about me - and "me" was being blown up like a balloon by pride. 

Yes, human respect may have played a role. That's where you care about what others think. 

At work, we, of course, do need to consider others. The customer for instance. We do need to care what they think about our product or service. That's just common sense.

And within reason we do want to consider our colleagues, especially if we typically work as part of a team. We don't want to talk or act n ways that alienate or offend our co-workers. That will create feelings and/or conflicts that prevent us from producing good work on time. Again, common sense. 

But in the end, if our sole concern is that others think "Hey, isn't he a great guy," well we're likely tiptoeing around or stepping right into the fault of human respect.

Of course, we can easily see a connection with pride here. Indeed, pride likely tries to steer a lot of our worst inclinations. Our fallen human nature was, after all, engineered by the Master of Pride: Lucifer. And with his minions of fallen angels - all fallen because of Pride (Non Serviam! - I will not serve!). 

Pride has no place in our lives - and that includes, of course, our work and our workplace.

We're not talking about "being proud of" your work. That's OK if all we mean is that you know you've done a great job and you simply recognize it. But even here, we're treading on the rim of the pit of Pride. So beware.

In any case, the antidote - as you may have suspected - is humility. And in the case of missing the post, there was a "gift" of humiliation that triggered at least a small vestige of the virtue of humility. 

Yep, I felt humiliated that I could possibly have missed this after all those years of regular posts. (And, yes, self and pride are cuddly bedfellows.)

Fortunately, God's grace and the whispers of the Holy Spirit not only provided the gift of the feeling of humiliation,  but also the intellectual capacity to catch the connection between the feeling of humiliation and humility itself. 

Humiliation can, left to itself, lead to self-pity. But when we allow it to feed the virtue of humility, it serves a good end.

That was, I think, what happened. Humiliation fed the fledgling virtue of humility which I have struggled to build for - literally - ages. (Again, by the grace of God.)

Okay, too much talk about me (feeding my pride?). But the point should be not about me, but about how humility will counter pride if and when it tries to shoehorn its way into our lives.

In this case, it tried to wriggle its way into my work - but for humility.

And it's really critically important that we learn to sniff out pride before it spoils our work. Yes, spoils it. There's not merit to our work, even it's a great job, done in a timely fashion, that garners praise from our boss, our colleagues, etc., etc. Pride spoils all of that.

Simply because of this: Our primary objective is that our work be done for the greater glory of God. And - of course - pride blocks that intention and turns it sour.

So...sorry to have talked about myself so much today; but I hope you found the lesson here helpful.