Killing Pride, Writing Again

Sep 3

How to kill pride…how to write again

It’s been quite the journey since I last wrote here. It was never my intention to stop writing, but I’ve learned from experience there are times when it’s better to live through the lessons, instead of trying to write them down. However, I often felt like something was missing over these last few months. It felt like I had all these stones floating in my psyche and I had no place to put them. The longer that I didn’t write, the more stones I collected and the more my psyche became a messy closet. I had no repository to put my thoughts, gleanings, lessons, mistakes, sorrow or joy. I felt like I was floating in the clouds, never sure of where I was supposed to land.

Still, as much as I benefit from the process of writing and blogging, I was afraid of coming back because of a demon that used to stir every time I hit publish.

In the past, the more that I published, the more there was a little voice that tempted me to “be internet famous”. This voice would remind me of the dreams I laid down years ago: making an income online, from my laptop, living anywhere in the world. “You can be your own boss. You can change lives and make a positive difference in people’s lives. You have good intentions. You can help people.” This voice would take my desire to do good and serve, and twist it into a narcissistic, self-serving poison.

Through my long journey of soul excavation in these last three years, I now have a name for this voice: pride. It is pride that wants to grow alongside my good intentions and taint my work.

I have worked hard to lay down my pride. I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut at work. I’ve tried to accept my lowly position in life. I’ve tried to remind myself that I’m not special. That I messed up sorely. That what I have to offer the world, even if it could benefit some, would not be worth becoming a prideful person.

Writing and producing any creative works for people to see publicly has always come with the knowledge that I could receive a compliment for my work. Someone might thank me. And although innocent, when I received enough of those compliments, when I tasted the feeling of acceptance, love and significance that came from someone’s compliment, I yearned for more of it. Yet that same sense of acceptance, love and significant turned into rust in my soul.

Imagine that I was creating little lamps, and leaving them on the path that I walk through life. I wasn’t confident in who I was following, so I often switched between different self-help gurus, internet superstars and online entrepreneurs. As I meandered on the path of life, I would go back to see if my little lamps were still working and still “helping” people. As other pilgrims walked on the way and saw my little lamps, they would leave offerings of thanks: comments, likes, and words of encouragement. I would take these offerings like fruit and then try to carry them with me forward. The problem is you can only carry so much fruit on a long journey. Eventually the excess starts to rot and grow mold. That is what happened to me. That is what pride did to my soul.

Although I was trying to do something good, my bag of pride, fear and trauma started to rot and grow mold. Of course, I had no idea this was happening at the time. It’s all subconscious, hidden and subtle. I didn’t see it until the day God crashed into my world, lifted the veil and showed me how rotten my soul had become. On the outside, I could create beautiful, bright photos and videos but on the inside, my soul reeked of rot. I was disgusted by myself.

Creative Entitlement

To add to this, I also had to deal with creative entitlement. In the creative world, there is a culture of attaching your identity to your work. Artists sign their name on their work and put it on display for it to be acknowledged. We would never imagine a plumber signing his name on pipes that he has fixed. Construction workers do not sign their names on the houses they build. Engineers don’t sign the bridges they build, but artists have credits roll after their movies have played.

Over the last few months of not writing or publishing, I pondered whether or not I should start a new, anonymous blog. I just wanted to write, to offer hope, without anyone knowing who I was. If anyone knew me, they might compliment me and it might cause the rot of pride to grow again. I wanted the freedom of not having to deal with compliments. I don’t want affirmation from people. That poison will kill me. I only want affirmation from God. I wanted to train my soul and psyche to only desire affirmation from God.

It wasn’t until I got a clear sign from God that He would teach me how to write and not grow prideful that I feel confident to write and publish again. Humility is the antidote to pride and until two weeks ago, I had no idea how I was supposed to grow in humility. Anyone who says they are humble probably isn’t. It’s a quality that can only identified from the outside.

Rather than trying to wait for me to be perfectly humbled by God, I understand now that it’s a process. The process of writing and publishing, which comes with the danger of pride rot, will be daily counterbalanced by God working in me to weave into me humility. Like the perfect, vigilant gardener, God will help me to pull out the weeds of pride so that the young tree can grow.

I feel like an athlete who is being called, somewhat unwillingly, back into the arena. Except this time, she doesn’t want to compete. She would rather plant tomatoes and watch them grow than run in races. Yet her coach, who she trusts wholeheartedly, reassures her that she was made to run and that He will teach her how to run without tripping.