Pride (draft )

Outline:

Thesis statement: Pride has both positive and negative effects.

Introduction:

A. Quotation

B. Definition of Pride

C. Thesis statement

    

Body:

A. Negative effects of Pride

A.1. Effects to the personality of a person

B.1. effects to the relationship of people to their lover, friends, and family

B. Positive effects of Pride

A.1. Effects to the performance of a person

B.2. Effects to the mood of a person

Conclusion:

A. Quotation

B. Conclusion

Topic: Pride

Thesis statement: Pride has negative effects on a person but there are still effects that are positive.

Is pride always negative? Even for once, do people think pride as positive? As how the Webster dictionary defines pride, it is justifiable self-respect; haughty behaviour; ostentatious display; and elation over an act or possession. To emphasize these definitions, Benedict de Spinoza said that “Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.” In other words, It is about how man becomes too proud about himself or accomplishments. Everyone has their own pride. On how Benedict de Spinoza deliver his quotation, he is saying that pride is negative. In my opinion, in some ways pride is bad if it is too much but if it is not then it can be good somehow. Pride can be good or bad depending on how you use it. It always depends on the person.

People tend to be confident about theirselves and sometimes it is too much that other people get irritated. Others boast about their strengths, accomplishments that they are already degrading other people who are not good at a particular aspect. For example, a student that is intelligent and really smart when it comes to math and science, and his classmate is having a hard time studying. Instead the smart student help his classmate, he will not help him because of too much pride. That too much pride cause him to think that helping others will put him at the bottom list. It means, that smart student wants to be on top always. Hence, pride can makes people arrogant.

In other situations, pride can also affect one’s relationship. It can be a relationship between lovers, friends even families. For example, a relationship between lovers, they once had a serious fight and because of too much pride, they do not want to see each other. Let us say the guy has too much pride, even though he knew that it was his fault, he would not say sorry to his partner. He does not want to say to his partner that he cannot live without her; he wants to prove that he is strong. On the other side, the girl, who do not have that much pride, ask for forgiveness just to end that fight. She lets her boyfriend dominate her which is also not good in a relationship not only for lover also for other kinds of relationship. This can also happen between friends. Of course like lovers, friends cannot avoid misunderstandings. Let us say that there are two girls and they are best friends, they had a fight that they do not want to talk to each other. The two of them have too much pride that they will not say sorry to each other as a result their friendship will broke. In the case of family, it can be like the father does not want to sell his farm but his son wants to sell it because his father has cancer and in order for them to pay the expenses, they want to sell the farm. The father does not want to sell it because it is his farm and he took good care of it. In this situation, it can be concluded that pride can destroy some relationship.

People tend to say that pride is always negative. If there are negative effects of pride, it has also positive effects. Pride can affect one’s performance. It is not bad if it is not too much, but also it is not good if you do not have that much pride. For instance, there is a student that is really good in talking; he is always confident and because of his confidence his teachers always give him a good feedback. Pride can help to increase one’s self-esteem. Also pride can affect the mood of a person. It makes a person happy, because he feels that everybody can appreciate his work not only him.

Charles Caleb Colton said “There is a paradox about pride - - it makes some men ridiculous but prevents others from becoming so.” It means that pride does not only have negative effects but also positive effects to people. The negative effects of it is really evident and it is because on how people use it in their everyday lives but do not let the negative effects to wash out the positive effects of the pride. It always depends on how people use it. Always keep on mind that having too much pride is not good as well as having a low pride. People always believe that when one is depriving his own pride, he is a good person but it is not true. When a person do not have much pride that he do not have any respect for himself, other people will take advantage of it and will not have a respect for that person.

Reference:

Merriam-Webster(1998).The Merriam-Webster Dictionary(p.413).Springfield,Massachussetts:Merriam-Webster,Incorporated

Provebia.(n.d).pride quotes.retrieved from http://en.proverbia.net/citastema.asp?tematica=942&page=2

GLAMFAMILY.(2001).brainyquote.retrieved from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/pride.html