A prominent subject in my life these days has been arrogance. Now that I know how to recognize it in myself and others, I am noticing it a lot more than I would like to. Arrogance for me has never been something to be proud of. As most of us are in our early teenage years, I too was arrogant. I thought I knew so much more than others and because of my supposed superior knowledge I thought that I was a genius surrounded by idiots. This feeling frustrated me to no end and only fueled my anger and arrogance towards others. Needless to say that those who I treated with such disrespect thought of me as a very dis-likable person to say the least. As I grew older and realized that being arrogant only gave others who really were smarter or wiser than you a free pass to bring you down verbally, I decided that I should drop the arrogance gig and to bluntly put it, grow up.
Now, that does not mean that I am totally arrogant free. I truly try to keep arrogance out of my attitude menu, but there are times that I can let it slip. A perfect example is when I really do know more about something or an area of interest than others. History is the first thing that comes to mind. When I have a discussion about, let's say the reasons why the North won the Civil War, with another person that knows just the basics. Now, most of the time I find myself educating them rather than making them feel like crap for not knowing that factories and population were a factor in the Civil War. But, when the person I am talking to tries to make an argument with the little knowledge they have, I usually let loose the cannons of knowledge I have reserved in my brain for such occasions. Do I win these conversations? a majority of the time, yes. Do I feel good about it? Not really.
When I see the same kind of arrogance that I display from time to time, I try to defuse it before it gets any worse. There are some people out there though that I swear love to be arrogant, and pick conversational fights that have really no relevance whatsoever. Those people I try to ignore.
I know arrogance is going to be around as long as there are people on this planet, and that I am going to have to deal with it. All I can do is try to be as unarrogant (is that even word?) as I can be and try to help others to do the same by setting an example.
I think that that will be a good place to wrap this up and bid you all a great day and that you have a great Easter weekend with friends and family. See you next post!
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