Today I want to talk for a minute about pride, and I don’t mean the kind of pride that this month is celebrating. I mean self-esteem and satisfaction in one’s work. More than that, I mean vanity and arrogance. I think this kind of pride is something that every creator, whether a writer or a painter or a musician, has to deal with. We are so often coming up with ideas, bringing these ideas into something real and concrete like a story, book, or song, and then showing the world what we have created. And it’s so, so easy to get caught up in smugness over our own achievements.
Of course, there’s value in taking pride in your work and being happy with what you’ve created – I think you need this to be able to write! – but a line must be drawn. Because when we get in the mindset that this latest poem, story, or book we’ve written is a sign of our true talent, that we’re better than a lot of other writers out there, that showing this piece to other people is going to reflect great on us - I think that’s when we begin to lose the joy of writing itself. Because if all we’re here to do it for is for our own glory, or if we get wrapped up in how amazing we are and lose sight of everything else but this egoism, the writing becomes about only that. It becomes about revelling in our own greatness instead of creating because that’s what we love to do, instead of writing because we have a million ideas to explore, instead of sharing our work because we want to offer the world something.
I struggle with this kind of pride a lot. I find in myself a desire to be the best author out there and to get credit and attention for what I write, and I often glorify myself when I finish a work that I think is really good. But that’s when I have to remember that none of what I have achieved is done in my own strength. It’s only through God that I can write anything at all. Instead of trying to be the best for my own honour, I should strive for greatness because that’s what glorifies God.
After all, isn’t His opinion the only one that matters?
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