Arrogance

I wish that people could be confident about themselves, their abilities, their ideas, without the tendency to become arrogant.

I think every single person has moments of arrogance. It could be the overall arrogant demeanor of those who think they are just better overall than everyone else and walk around like they're the shit--what we usually visualize when thinking of an arrogant person--but it could also be partial/compartmentalized: religious arrogance, moral arrogance (self-righteousness?), intellectual arrogance (which could be "I'm smarter than everyone else," "I'm deeper than everyone else," "I have better taste than everyone else," "I don't conform like everyone else does," and so on).

I suppose maybe arrogance is just part of the human condition, part of the struggle to validate ourselves, to find meaning in our lives, to discover what makes us important and unique and valuable. It's a see-saw between worthlessness and arrogance, a healthy sense of self and confidence being the ideal balance. But as we know, even when we've attained that point of perfect equilibrium, it takes just as much work to stay there. Flinch or blink for a second, and you find yourself falling to worthlessness or arrogance, overcompensating, falling to the other side. And the see-sawing continues until you get back to that state of balance or until you get tired and just give up.

Like all things in life, I guess the important thing, then, is just to keep on going. This is not school, where we are graded purely on outcome. This is life, where you can actually get an "A" for effort.