[can't recall all of it inside of my head. Here's the parts I can extract...]
We have come to think of pride and arrogance as a "love" for oneself. We have such stories as the myth of Narcissus, the man who's so arrogant that he falls in love with his own reflection in a pool, and drowns.
But I have come here today to say that Narcissus did not, in fact, fall in love with himself, and that pride is no love at all.
I have struggled for much of my life with arrogance, without me having the self-awareness to call it by that name. I have engaged in the desperate climb to be 'good enough' - and not only 'good enough', but 'the best', 'the superior', 'the exemplar.'
When I was a child, out of a sense of my own neglect and pain, I would attempt to be a caretaker for myself and my sister, so that I could show myself as "the better parent."
When I was a student, I would thrust myself into this extracurricular and that, attempting to be the best guitarist, the best debater, as "the best leader."
And when I entered the workplace, I would posture myself as the best Product Manager, the most learned, the most empathetic, as "the best manager".
And in all these desperate attempts to scaffold to the very top and touch the sky... I would fail. Inevitably. And miserably.
I would fail to be the better parent each time my parents showed themselves to be wiser and more capable than me in different situations.
And I would fail to be the better leader as I only faintly grasped at how to be a human friend to one another, and couldn't motivate people.
And I would fail to be the best manager when my efforts at perfectionism and control only resulted in frustration and burnout in those around me.
I only called these things "failures", because my arrogance constrained me to a harsh, black-and-white worldview where I could be one of two things:
- The best person amongst all people
- The worst, most terrible person amoungst all people, who deserved to be cut off from society.
And so, with each slight correction, with each feedback, and each criticism, I went from arrogance [motioning upwards with hand] — shunt! [hand abruptly moves down] down to despair.
And all this time, I have done what I can to shield myself from the despair that comes from this fall. I know little else that is more psychologically painful than that whiplash from arrogance to despair.
Arrogance and despair, however opposite they are, have something in common. Both are a refusal to appraise oneself honestly, and to see the whole of yourself at the same time.
Pride is the condition of looking at your own individualistic virtues and strength, and believing them to make them better than others.
And despair is the condition of looking at your own flaws and weaknesses, your mistakes and [air quotes] "failures", and believing them to make you the worst of all people.
Both are myopic, and both strain to accomodate reality.
I have come here today to tell you of a third way, a way that incorporates reality, and a way that allows you to love yourself: and that is the way of acceptance.
When I accept myself, I see myself as a whole. My virtues and my mistakes. My tendencies and habits. My cringe-inducing failures and my victories. My growth and my maturity.
It is all part of the same person, and with acceptance, we can come to see that all of it - the parts we like as well as the parts that we do not - that all of it is good.