Pride is a perversion of self-love which in itself is a good gift of God. So Aquinas called pride “inordinate self-love”. It’s to desire to be greater than we really are; it’s to be dissatisfied with our true selves. It can be said that Adam & Eve got this ball rolling in Eden, not satisfied at being a creature but wanting equality with their Creator instead.
So pride can affect us in two ways. When we feel that we “measure up” to the standard set by pride then we feel good about our selves-due to feelings of superiority. But when we feel that we don’t measure up then we feel inferior. Either position is wrong as they result from a standard imposed on us that we’re not meant to abide by. But we, ourselves, keep falling for the same temptations to live up to this standard that keeps enticing us and the rest of the world.
We must, however, love ourselves if we’re to be happy and healthy, if we’re to be who we were meant to be. And it’s very difficult to be kind and helpful to others if we’re continuously unhappy and dissatisfied with ourselves. But here, again, pride is the main culprit in this dissatisfaction; if we simply love ourselves as we should we won’t hate ourselves every time we fail in some way; we’ll cut ourselves more slack for being the limited, imperfect creatures of a Creator who alone is perfect. Or, OTOH, we won’t become the cold, miserable tyrants over others that we become when we feel the rush of superiority that pride offers when we think we have measured up.
And where we fail in valid ways, where dissatisfaction might truly be called for, when we sin IOW, then we can know that this Creator forgives us and wants to heal and place us back in that state of love for God, self, and others. That humble state that opposes pride by its nature.
