It's okay to have some pride in yourself

Minutes ago I just managed to end an argument I'd seemingly subconsciously been having with myself for a rather long time. Being raised with Christian values and having read the big book a bit, I had come to my own conclusion (in my pre-teens) that any pride in oneself whatsoever is the path to evil, and had automatically tried to avoid it at all costs. The thing about pride, is that it's a rather complex emotion, one that is underpinned by self-perception and attitude. It is also a double-edged sword and as such we can use it to either defend our own self-worth or to attack the self-worth of others. It is the latter of these two types of pride that gets all the bad rap from religious texts, but this can often lead to the association with pride as a whole being bad, which it is not. This article summed it up quite nicely for me:

Pride can cut like a knife and the outcome will depend on which side of the blade you choose to employ. You can choose to use the negative side of the blade or the positive side of the blade. You can identify which side of the blade is being used by examining the intention and expression of the pride in question.

When pride is expressed with the intention to inspire a comparison in which another person will be made to feel small or inferior is a negative use of the blade. In this situation the blade is being used to cut someone down, to harm and cause injury.

When pride is expressed with the intention to build yourself or someone else up and to infuse a feeling of satisfaction is a positive use of the blade. In this situation the blade is being used to free yourself or another from the bonds of self-doubt.

 I have recently experienced myself symptoms that I would attribute to a much-lessened sense of self-pride. I was finding it harder to focus on or commit myself to doing my work, often out of a panic-induced loathing for my own work. Whether or not these happenings are direct consequences of a lack of pride is not something I could say for definite, but regaining some self-confidence by having the confidence to be proud of myself definitely does help.

Live long, be strong, LOVE YOURSELVES!

(not too much, just enough ;) )

Why anyone who tries to tell you that "life's not fair" is talking a load of rubbish at you...

We often hear the old maxim "life's not fair" splurted out at us, often after we have plead a case where an injustice has been done upon us, and hope for some compensation or sympathy from the person who then goes on to use the aforementioned phrase - all with the basic message of:
"If anything, it's more YOUR fault for not realising something that is a worldwide occurrence than it is MY fault for not doing anything to solve the problem."
We're all familiar with the disappointed, downtrodden feeling we then feel immediately after, betrayed almost by someone we thought we could rely on.
The truth is (I believe) that actually, on a mathematical level life SHOULD be fair. If we theorise that the first generation of the human race were a bunch of individuals all of whom had a more or less equal chance / opportunity to excel, then that would lead us to conclude that it is the nature of human beings that is not fair. If when we say "life", we refer not only to all living organisms on earth but to the experiences of these organisms (life in the generalised sense: "city-life", "life on the street") then it is reasonable to conclude that life itself has no concept of fairness as such, as life is not an entity with the ability to differentiate between fair and unfair. This point alone undermines the whole statement "life isn't fair", as not only being a poor excuse for the cruelty / evil of humanity, but a poorly structured idea that is mistakenly trying to personify a concept that is unpersonifiable.
Even the "natural evils" - earthquakes, tsunamis, famine, etc... cannot be seen as examples of "life not being fair", as such events are often random occurences, and their impact on human life can often be as much due to the responses and help efforts of humanity as the severity of the events themselves.
In short, when somebody tries to tell you that life isn't fair, they are hiding their own and the human race's inability to all be fair to one another behind the scapegoat of no responsibility, nature itself.