Pride

Being the Man Looking back at my life it seems that I have changed drastically over multiple periods of time. Many people would say many different things about me and the way I was when they knew me. I always thought myself as a decent person; I would hold doors for woman, or clean up random trash that was laying around.
According to my mother I was always a very humble child and would put others before me all of the time with no questions asked. But as I grew older I wandered away from that, and became very prideful. I would always say that it was just me having self confidence, but that was just my way of hiding my pride from myself and others. When I was in high school the boys soccer team was very underappreciated. We always had a solid squad, and always did well during the regular season and the post season. We made many enemies with other teams from our school and even some from other school in my city. The soccer team at my high school was very close, we stuck together all the time, no matter what class you were in there was at least two other soccer players and your job was to gang up and run the class. During my junior year once again we had a good soccer team, and with me being an upper classman and a captain on the team I was a person that everyone looked up too. The captains of each sports team were always cool with each other, and we stayed out of each other’s ways for the most part. The only time that we really associated with many people was at parties and things like that. At school we would act like we were better than everyone else and just stick to ourselves. We had a very good season going on; we were number one in the conference and were ranked in the state in the top 10. We lost two games in a row against teams that we should not of lost too. With only a fourth of the season left we had to win out to get the number two seed for the playoffs. The football team (the most heated team on campus) was already talking crap about us losing, which was not okay. We won the rest of our games, but we only got second in conference but that got us the number two seed in the playoffs. So we were pretty happy with where we were at as a team and were focused on winning the state championship. We stated talking all kinds of crap again back to the football team and ensured that we would be state finalists. We were working very hard as a team making sure that we would be as ready as we could be for the state playoffs. We played Durant in the first round of the playoffs, we beat Durant tree to one in the regular season so we felt very confident playing this team at home. We played well, I scored a goal and we had a one goal lead at halftime. We scored another goal early in the second half, and once that happened we all started showboating. We were doing things that would not normally be done in a normal soccer game. We could of beat the time pretty bad but we try to score “cool” goals instead of just putting the ball in the net. Our coach was getting very upset with us. The football team was also at the game and we were trying to make a point that we did what we want and we would still win even in the playoffs. We won the game by four goals, but it came with a price. Our coach worked our butts off for three days, we did not even get to touch a soccer ball at practice. With everyone knowing that we were moving on in the playoffs and that we won so decisively, we were back on top of the totem pole. In the second round of the playoffs we played NorthWest Classen. We lost to this team the past two years in the playoffs and in the regular season, so we were determined to beat this team finally. We lost the game by one goal; it was a dark day for the whole team. It was a good day for other people in my school who were not so supportive of the soccer team. To me, pride is defined as; reserving for yourself the final decision. This simply means that whenever you make a decision that benefits only you, that is pride. People say that all sin is equal, not only is every sin equal but you can not only commit one sin without committing another sin. If your mother asks you a question but you lie to her about what really happened, not only are you sinning by lying but this is also pride. This is something that I have had to struggle with through my life. I have made bad decisions and I have blown opportunities that I have had open up to me. Not that what I have done is bad but it makes me just a little less of a man than I could be.