Dan Millman Reflection

According to the theologians, pride is the worst of the seven deadly sins. therefore having pride in what you do is all about motivation. Getting motivated and doing something you love to achieve full potential is in a human nature. Scientifically spoke, it all begins from the bunch of chemicals that is happening in your brain. While all animals produce basic emotions like fear and anger, humans have highly developed social emotions, such as shame, guilt and pride which involve an awareness of what other people think and feel about us. The serotonin is the chemical that produces happiness in your brain.

Pride can be both beneficial and detrimental. Pride is the feeling of intense satisfaction because of one’s achievements. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Miller shows different types of pride throughout the play. Miller shows examples of good pride, bad pride, and mixed pride through various characters in the play. He wants us to learn the difference between the good pride and the bad pride so we can focus on the good.

In the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth, Tris shows pride through taking risks to prove that she is not weak. Tris joins the fearless Dauntless faction in order to hide her divergence from normal human tendencies, but she must also make it through her Dauntless initiation. One example of Tris showing pride by taking risks is when Tris volunteers to jump off a building first. “I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave...I don’t think. I just bend my knees and jump” (Roth 57-58). Tris knows that she is proud, and she understands that pride can be both beneficial and dangerous. In the situation of jumping of a tall building, her pride is a positive trait that makes her brave enough to take risks and prove herself worthy of being part of Dauntless when she doubts herself. Another example of Tris’s pride is when she takes the responsibility of saving the factions. She explains, “The best I can hope for is to destroy the simulation before someone kills me. When did I decide on

A father smiling down at his son; a teacher learning from his pupil; a soldier gazing up to his country’s flag. Or a woman masking her face with makeup; a man boasting endlessly of a talent; a child mocking another’s impediment. All textbook illustrations of pride. Nevertheless, the first trio is of outward pride—pride not of one’s own accomplishment, but the achievements of something or someone else. Moreover, the second trio consists of an inner pride—a vain, arrogant, conceited, egotistic, narcissistic feeling. Another crucial aspect of different prides is Jane Austen’s Pride vs. Vanity. She says, “A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” Although “pride goeth before the fall”, pride, being outward or being competent to ourselves, is a healthy feeling unless provoked into vanity and narcissism.

Another example of pride would be with John Proctor. John Proctor was your everyday man. He was a farmer, he claimed to be Godly though he was said to never attend church. Not attending church then was very frowned upon and even considered a horrible sin. His wife, Elizabeth Proctor, was accused of witchcraft by Abigail Williams. Abigail did this to get revenge because Elizabeth fired her. Elizabeth did this because Abigail had an affair with John. He would not confess to being associated with the Devil because it was not true and he did not want shame brought to his name. Though his wife talked him into confessing, he would not sign his name to the paper. Not only did he not sign his name; he also ripped up the papers. This shows a great deal of pride as well, being that he would not confess because of the way society would look at him thinking that he was associated with the Devil.

Chris McCandless radiates pride throughout his journey and exploration to find what I believe, to be self-meaning, Chris flows and adapts to everything around him in Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, this goes hand in hand with “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, showing a multitude of examples of pride as well. In every man's life they are given the tools and ability to succeed, but the challenge is for them to use those tools and abilities along with their imagination and drive to succeed. This is given some light in Self-Reliance; “no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till” (Emerson 1). This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance makes a great point in saying that the path to success is not paved for you, you must pave it yourself.

Pride is a characteristic of having a high opinion of one’s self. An example of a prideful action is when Odysseus and his crew are escaping from the Cyclop, and he pauses to yell: “Cyclops, if any mortal ask who blinded you, tell him that Odysseus, raider of cities, is to blame”(Homer 85). In this scene, Odysseus stops his whole crew to get credit for blinding the Cyclop. Odysseus has such a high opinion of himself that he feels the urge announce his achievements. This excessive satisfaction in his achievement is the definition of pride, consequently meaning pride motivated Odysseus’s actions.

“that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death” (Hurst 3). Brother wants to be proud of Doodle once he learns to walk, but pride is not always a good thing. Yes, this is a factor of being driven, although, having too much pride could hurt Doodle emotionally, making him feel like before he learned to walk, he was messed up and not

Any great accomplishment can make someone feel proud about their work. It makes one feel good; it raises a person's spirits. "No question, pride has its good points." (The Toronto Star, Nov 1999) Then again, there are also the bad points of pride one must consider, before being proud. Pride can deceive a person into being ambitious, and make them strive for something that is not rightfully theirs. Both Macbeth and Willy encountered this problem. Pride can also cause a bad relationship with the people one loves most. For Macbeth and Willy, their relationships with their families were burdened as a consequence of this pride. Pride can lead to much worse things; it can put a person in a

Once he actually sits down and thinks it comes to him and he is amazed. He then confronts Socrates about his discovery and he is proud. Socrates says “Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe, you are yourself and everyone else too.” Dan then proceeds to improve him self by apologizing to his friends. Obviously, Dan with his new knowledge started to teach throughout the movie becoming a leader of some

The worship out of fear is one aspect that Fontenrose illustrates and brings to light submitting four athletes who were not praised and actually chastised for failure. He listed four examples of athletes that received

If a person believes he is always right and always ready for anything then he is sorely mistaken. Dan finds out in Peaceful Warriors that his ego is what holds him back. Self vs alter ego is what Socrates wants Dan to understand so he can see that there is more to the world than just himself. First of all Dan gets too cocky and allows his ego to get the best of him by trying to do a trick he know he is not ready for also he goes against his friends but just when he believes he knows everything he meets Socrates. For example, Dan sleeps with one of his so called best friend girlfriend knowing what they are doing is wrong, then when the friend brings up the situation in the bar he is thinking that he did nothing wrong which ruins Trevor’s party.

In the beginning of the movie Dan was a person with a strong ego, and thought he had a perfect life and can get anything he wanted. Betrayed one of his friends by going out with his girlfriend, Think he better than everybody else. Then he met Socrates that helps him to get with his gymnastics skills.

Being told to “take pride in what you do” is a phrase common in the athletic world. From work, to sports, or even just doing your school work, elders always tell us younger generations to “take pride in what you do”. Taking pride to what they do as an athlete is something coaches, and parents pound in athletes’ heads every day. But, what is pride? How do inexperienced athletes have pride in something when nobody tells these athletes how to fulfill this this aspect of “pride”?

Parables throughout the book provide Dan images and ideas for meditation or introduce him to a new change in his journey. The moment when he understands Socrates is only towards the end, when his teacher goes in the mountains to rescue and help him with his final task, climbing the mountain, symbol for his ego and adversities. He remembers a parable he had never understood before that moment: “A saintly woman was walking along the edge of a cliff. Several hundred feet below, she saw a dead mother lion, surrounded by crying cubs. Without hesitation, she leaped off the cliff so that they would have something to eat”. This shows what Socrates would figuratively be willing to do to help Dan growing up. Sometimes one thinks they know their friends, but they don’t really understand how