Pressure Valves

An interesting thought occurs to me. I was telling my dad about the time I insulted a celebrity on my blog and was called to task for it. He told me that it was good to have humbling experiences before I became too prideful. Not very sympathetic it's true, but that's what I have an fiancee for.

You know how they say you shouldn't keep your anger all bottled up and let it explode all at once? I wonder if the same is true for pride. I think I have a natural tendancy to accrue feelings of pride and arrogance. I would consider myself a sucsessfull person* and it stands to reason that unchecked, my pride would get out of hand.

I imagined myself like a canister of gas under pressure (why I thought of this specifically, I'm not sure, I think it's because I used big cannisters of Helium every year at home-coming to inflate balloons at Taylor). And the gas inside was pride.

Now the terrible thing would be if more and more gas got pent up intside the cannister until eventually it just blew up. This happens to people. Think about Tiger Woods or anyone else who was so "larger than life" that they could do anything. Until it caught up with them.

A much healthier thing would be events along the way the let out some of my "hot air." For example, insult a celebrity on your blog or invite a dirty comedian to campus. That's like a saftey valve kicking on and letting out a good amount of air and relievving some of the pressure before things turn dangerous. It's still kind of explosive (and painful) but way better than it would have been if everything has stayed all bottled up inside.

The BEST alternative would be to just poke a bunch of holes in the container so that everything that flows in flows back out naturally and safely. But until I can figure out how to do that I suppose I'll just be thankful to God for safety valve expreinces.

*not financially