Pride is my Deadly Sin...What's Yours?

What’s your deadly sin?

Mine is pride.

I know, I know. How wack is that? I was talking to my ride or die about my pride and how difficult of a time I have asking for help. As with most things that run through my mind, I have a tendency to want to go and look up the things that I’m thinking about, in my quest for useless yet endless knowledge. The Catholic Church’s assessment of the Cardinal Sin of pride “is identified as a desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self (especially holding self out of proper position toward God)”.

I don’t have any desire to be more important or attractive than others, purely from an aesthetic standpoint. I am, however, a perfectionist. I know this about myself. I also know that when I want something, and it’s important to me…I pursue it until either I get what I want or something else piques my interest. With that, I know that because I like to perfect what I put my hands on, if I half ass something, it bothers me until I fix it. Otherwise, it continues to nag at me. I guess that could be considered pride.

The other thing I have issues with is asking for help or assistance. Because of this whole perfectionist complex thing I got going, I have a hard time asking for help with a lot of things because 1. I feel like I can fix it myself if I think about it long enough, 2. I hate inconveniencing anyone, especially when I can figure it out on my own, and 3. Depending on what I need help with, if it doesn’t come out how I want it to come out, I end up doing it over anyway. So I guess that is a pride issue, now that I think about it.

I know that no one man is an island. I am learning that sometimes, my way is not the best way. I am gradually learning how better to handle that. I am also gradually learning that if I don’t know how to fix it within a specified period of time, it’s best to let someone else handle it. Sometimes, it’s OK to let someone with more experience do it, big or small. That way, I can focus my attention on something else more important that my particular skill set is needed for.

I think the other part of it is, when you ask for help, there’s always the chance that someone will use it as leverage over you in the future. I think that is the part that stops me from asking the most, or, even better, when assistance is offered, why I don’t take it. If you’re offering to help, it should be because you genuinely want to help…not because you are looking to have something to hold over someone later on. If you’re not helping out of the goodness of your heart, then keep it. I don’t want it.


So like I asked in the beginning…what’s your deadly sin? And why?

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