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It should be a blend of humility and pride. Humility in approaching problems and possibility of failure, pride in the final solution when it has been carefully

It should be a blend of humility and pride. Humility in approaching problems and possibility of failure, pride in the final solution when it has been carefully and mindfully devised. Without being proud of your work, it’s all too easy to fall in the trap of churning out valueless stuff.

dmos62 5y ago
I know it's culturally controversial, but I think pride is a bad emotion. It's better than some, like anger or fear, but when you're prideful you're saying you're better than someone and then being worse than someone is just around the corner. A prideful man thinks that everything needs to be sorted by some concept of good. It doesn't. You can do good things because you care about others, instead of doing them because you want to be good. This distinction is important.
- RupertWiser 5y ago
  I disagree with this. I’d like to take a step back and even ask what a bad emotion really even means? That sounds a bit hand wavy. I like to get endorphins. I like that the field I chose as a career can give me that when I feel like I did something well. I think an argument goes into pretty vague territory if one tries to argue that it’s more “good” when you get a nice feeling from helping others instead of feeling nice from your own work.
  - dmos62 5y ago
    We know if an emotion is worse than another empirically. You'd rather feel joyful than ashamed, for example. You can aim for pride. That's fine. But there's better things. When you're prideful (self-inflating would be a good synonym) you're coming off as defensive. It begs the question why do you need that. The distinction between the "goods" I was talking about is a question of whether you're motivated by that defensiveness, or some sense of lack, or if it's an act of caring, or an act of joy, or whatever. There's a world of difference between those approaches to action.
    - danparsonson 5y ago
      I think you're just debating semantics here really. The word 'pride' can be used to mean subtly different but related things, for example a) pride in a job well done, which is what I believe the other commenters here are referring to, is the feeling of taking pleasure in successfully producing a well-made (something), whereas b) pride in the sense of 'puffing oneself up' is holding and/or projecting an unrealistically high estimation of one's abilities, perhaps in an attempt to impress others - you could also refer to this as vanity I don't see a problem with a); taking pleasure in doing quality work doesn't preclude one from seeing potential areas of improvement and it doesn't have to be pathological (telling everyone else repeatedly how good your work is, for example, which tends towards b) ), it's more like an intrinsic source of motivation and joy.
      - dmos62 5y ago
        I agree. I am talking about that pride as in puffing oneself up.
- username90 5y ago
  You shouldn't be driven by pride, no, but you should still feel it. There is nothing wrong about being proud of helping others for example.
  - dmos62 5y ago
    > There is nothing wrong about being proud of helping others for example. I disagree. Pridefulness stays pridefulness irregardless of the context. Whether you puff up because you did something socially rewarding or not doesn't matter. The other side of the coin with pride is shame. A prideful person might feel pride if he helps someone, and that's nice, because he's told himself that not helping is shameful, so he just went from shame to pride. But pride is only good in relation to shame. If he had the choice, he'd choose to be happy about helping through empathy for example, rather than pride. It's best to escape the duality of pride and shame. I'll put it another way. Would you prefer to do something out of shame, fear, lust, pride, courage, caring, love or joy? It's not all the same, is it?
    - naveen99 5y ago
      > irregardless Double negative in a single word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless Interestingly the redundancy of Java is problematic for a similar reason that the redundancy of a double negative can actually reverse the meaning.
    - anaerobicover 5y ago
      It seems we need to be distinct in pride as public vs. pride as private. In private, you are being proud of a thing you have done, it gives you good feeling and confidence, and inspiring you to go on to other works. It is positive and to build you up, not to put down another. In public to be prideful, it is at expense of others, you put you above the other, and it is fueled by the external. It is negative energy sucked from outwards.
      - dmos62 5y ago
        There isn't actually a distinction. In both cases it's the super-ego, the internal representation of "public", that's the ruleset for what's good and bad. Pride is about judgment (and self-judgment) by the super-ego. You could argue that if you're alone it's not destructive, but I don't believe that.

dmos62 5y ago

I know it's culturally controversial, but I think pride is a bad emotion. It's better than some, like anger or fear, but when you're prideful you're saying you're better than someone and then being worse than someone is just around the corner. A prideful man thinks that everything needs to be sorted by some concept of good. It doesn't. You can do good things because you care about others, instead of doing them because you want to be good. This distinction is important.

RupertWiser 5y ago
I disagree with this. I’d like to take a step back and even ask what a bad emotion really even means? That sounds a bit hand wavy. I like to get endorphins. I like that the field I chose as a career can give me that when I feel like I did something well. I think an argument goes into pretty vague territory if one tries to argue that it’s more “good” when you get a nice feeling from helping others instead of feeling nice from your own work.
- dmos62 5y ago
  We know if an emotion is worse than another empirically. You'd rather feel joyful than ashamed, for example. You can aim for pride. That's fine. But there's better things. When you're prideful (self-inflating would be a good synonym) you're coming off as defensive. It begs the question why do you need that. The distinction between the "goods" I was talking about is a question of whether you're motivated by that defensiveness, or some sense of lack, or if it's an act of caring, or an act of joy, or whatever. There's a world of difference between those approaches to action.
  - danparsonson 5y ago
    I think you're just debating semantics here really. The word 'pride' can be used to mean subtly different but related things, for example a) pride in a job well done, which is what I believe the other commenters here are referring to, is the feeling of taking pleasure in successfully producing a well-made (something), whereas b) pride in the sense of 'puffing oneself up' is holding and/or projecting an unrealistically high estimation of one's abilities, perhaps in an attempt to impress others - you could also refer to this as vanity I don't see a problem with a); taking pleasure in doing quality work doesn't preclude one from seeing potential areas of improvement and it doesn't have to be pathological (telling everyone else repeatedly how good your work is, for example, which tends towards b) ), it's more like an intrinsic source of motivation and joy.
    - dmos62 5y ago
      I agree. I am talking about that pride as in puffing oneself up.
username90 5y ago
You shouldn't be driven by pride, no, but you should still feel it. There is nothing wrong about being proud of helping others for example.
- dmos62 5y ago
  > There is nothing wrong about being proud of helping others for example. I disagree. Pridefulness stays pridefulness irregardless of the context. Whether you puff up because you did something socially rewarding or not doesn't matter. The other side of the coin with pride is shame. A prideful person might feel pride if he helps someone, and that's nice, because he's told himself that not helping is shameful, so he just went from shame to pride. But pride is only good in relation to shame. If he had the choice, he'd choose to be happy about helping through empathy for example, rather than pride. It's best to escape the duality of pride and shame. I'll put it another way. Would you prefer to do something out of shame, fear, lust, pride, courage, caring, love or joy? It's not all the same, is it?
  - naveen99 5y ago
    > irregardless Double negative in a single word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless Interestingly the redundancy of Java is problematic for a similar reason that the redundancy of a double negative can actually reverse the meaning.
  - anaerobicover 5y ago
    It seems we need to be distinct in pride as public vs. pride as private. In private, you are being proud of a thing you have done, it gives you good feeling and confidence, and inspiring you to go on to other works. It is positive and to build you up, not to put down another. In public to be prideful, it is at expense of others, you put you above the other, and it is fueled by the external. It is negative energy sucked from outwards.
    - dmos62 5y ago
      There isn't actually a distinction. In both cases it's the super-ego, the internal representation of "public", that's the ruleset for what's good and bad. Pride is about judgment (and self-judgment) by the super-ego. You could argue that if you're alone it's not destructive, but I don't believe that.