Pride

Series: Human Landscapes – Part I

“Why didn’t you go to your appointment?”

“Because my pride was hurt.”

“Is your pride more important than your vision?”

“Yes.”

Those few lines have been following me for days.

They come and go in my mind like a small, quiet wave that refuses to fade. The man who said them is at risk of losing his eyesight. For months, he would come into the office saying, “I can’t see anything,” “my vision is so bad I can’t take care of myself,” “if I don’t go to the doctor, I’m afraid I’ll get hit by a car — I can only make out lights.” Eventually, after a great deal of effort from several people around him, an appointment with an ophthalmologist was arranged. A simple, basic appointment — yet one that’s extremely difficult and time-consuming to secure here. And still, on the day of that appointment, this man decided not to go.

A fight had taken place earlier, in the hallway of a service, with other beneficiaries who were also going through difficult phases in their lives. Tension rose. Harsh words were exchanged, and it nearly turned physical. Some of the staff there, in a tone perhaps stricter than he could handle at that moment, reminded him that he had to follow "basic" rules if he wanted to continue receiving services. They told him he couldn’t behave that way. Whether they were right or wrong, and whether their approach was appropriate for that particular moment, doesn’t matter much now. The outcome was one: he felt wounded. He felt that no one understood him. And so, he didn’t go to the appointment. Not because he was lazy. Not because he didn’t want help. But because, as he told me, he felt his pride had been wounded. And in the face of that, the need for eyesight came second.

And I was left wondering…

What is pride, really? What is it rooted in, that it can become stronger than the fear of losing something as essential as sight? Can it really be more important than light, than connection, than life itself? And why?

Perhaps for some people, pride is the last thing they have left. When so much has been lost — home, work, relationships, trust, stability, health — something needs to remain that says: “I’m still here, I still have something that’s mine.” Something no one can touch or take away, something defined solely by the person themselves, even if — from the outside — it might seem i r r a t i o n a l. And many times, that “something” could simply be called p r i d e.

Of course, I’m not sure whether we, culturally, tend to confuse pride with dignity, or whether there really is a clear difference between the two. What I do think is important to clarify here is that, in this particular flow of thought, pride is not understood as arrogance, but as an inner way of reminding yourself that you’re not broken. That even if nothing is left, you still have something that is yours.

It seems that for some of us, this understanding of pride is quite real — and I suppose that’s because, in that moment, going to the appointment feels like admitting a kind of d e f e a t. Like letting go of a final spark of strength and autonomy. And that spark — whether you call it pride, dignity, stubbornness, or simply the effort to remain the one who defines who you are — becomes s a c r e d, and definitely non-negotiable.

And so, in a strange reversal, the pride that is meant to hold us upright becomes what distances us from care. From healing. From the very possibility of continuing to see.

That’s where the familiar paradox of “pathology” begins — a paradox that is, in practice, reflected in the organism’s attempt to protect itself from something external (in this case, the loss of pride) by using every resource it has available, even if that resource is its own eyesight. And so, pride — when disconnected from everything else — can take the shape of something that seems self-destructive. It can blind, both literally and metaphorically. It can make you unable to see clearly — not yourself, not the others around you, not even what still matters.

This is the point where the line begins to blur between people trying to communicate — all the more so when that communication, or their very role, carries a caregiving or therapeutic responsibility. Is pride part of a person’s dignity, an inalienable right that must be respected? Or is it a trap we are meant to rescue them from at all costs? Is it something that can stand on its own, or does it always carry with it stubbornness, anger, and bitterness? When is it a virtue — and when does it turn into self-destruction?

If you’ve read this far, I’ll admit, with a slight smile, that I don’t have an answer. The only thing I do know is that you can’t tell someone to “set their pride aside” without pulling the ground out from under their feet — even if you don’t mean to. If you don’t know what that pride is holding, what it’s trying to protect, where it comes from, what it carries with it, then maybe it’s best not to touch it at all. There are always other ways to get to where we want to go — if that’s truly where we both want to go. After all, as the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome (if you actually want to go there — I’d add that myself).

In the end, what stays with me is not the urge to “fix” pride — but to respect it. To give it space without allowing it to limit us, and to recognize that for the people around us, regardless of the situation they may be in, holding on to even a small piece of control over their lives might be more important than saving something that, in our eyes, seems non-negotiable. If we consider Newton’s third law of motion — every action has an equal and opposite reaction — then it’s very possible that we, too, need to change our way. To set aside, just for a moment, what’s “right” and “wrong,” and instead of explaining or persuading, to ask — gently, discreetly, genuinely:

• What would you say to someone you love, if they were in your position?

• How would you like to feel when making decisions that concern you?

• If this day could begin again, what would you want to be different, so that you could go to the appointment without feeling like you're losing a part of yourself?

Perhaps, in the end, it wasn’t a matter of choosing between pride and sight. Perhaps it was about finding a way for light to pass through there too — through the hardest, most stubborn, most human parts of us. Because pride, like light, can either dull or brighten.

Where we look — and how — might make all the difference.