We’ve all heard the sayings warning us of the dangers of pride.

But what EXACTLY about pride contributes to our downfall?

Usually pride starts building when things are going good for us in some area of our lives. We begin to think we’re invincible, that our success is going to last forever.

It doesn’t.

But we are blind to that.

Thus, we base our actions on such faulty presumptions and it may appear to work for a short while, that things just keep on getting better, but as we all know, in the long term, things rise and fall – such is nature and as a result, we find the results of our actions based on our invincibility result in our downfall.

Happens all the time.

The second thing pride does is blind us as to what’s in front of us and the people around us as well. All we can think about is ourselves and how good we are and we don’t see the potential potholes that we might fall into that are right in front of us. Moreover, our attitude turns off the people around us, which just helps contribute to our downfall as that can very well work against us.

Moreover, we become complacent. We don’t have that hunger anymore. We’ve done it, so we stop the momentum train after an initial boost, and we get into this rut, full of apathy, down on ourselves, which leads us to travel down dark roads we never want to travel.

In effect, if you look at all this, we find that we STOP doing the very things that made us successful in the first place. Pride is the antithesis of everything we’ve done up to that point. Being humble, learning from others, having a burning desire to improve, seeing what’s in front of us, acknowledging those around us – all this and more helped contribute to our success but the moment we are riding on top of the wave, pride helps throw all that out the window.

To illustrate, let’s say there’s a guy named James. He hungers to play as a quarterback for the NFL. He does well in high school, gets letters from the top D1 college football schools across the nation, goes to one of them, leads his team to victories, bowl games, national championships, becomes first draft pick of the NFL, the millions of dollars come pouring in, the champagne is overflowing, he celebrates, and then it all kind of falls apart after that.

Doesn’t do too well in training camp as he finds out on the next level, he’s not hot stuff after all. With the money coming in, he tries to invest in ventures he’s not aware of, pressured by those around him to make the most use of his money and finds he has lost money in those ventures. His teammates don’t respect him as his cocky attitude and weak work ethic during training camp turn them off. He doesn’t hunger to learn anymore. He’s got the money. The drive he had in high school and in college is all but extinguished. He struggles during the season. The press rips him to shreds. The euphoria he felt on signing day is long gone, and his future looks bleak and dark.

It’s amazing how pride can just bring you straight down from the highest of highs.

I remember reading in a book that John Wooden, on his way to church the following Sunday after winning his first national championship, had a bird drop its dung on his head. He viewed that as a reminder from God not to get so puffed up.

As we can see from what happened later on in his career, that attitude worked wonders.

Don’t fall into the many subtle traps of pride.

When you’re riding the highest of highs, it’s easy to forget.

So if you need any reminding, just think of a big piece of bird poop falling on your head.