Pride Comes Before a Fall

Pride Comes Before a Fall

1987 3 March 13 Pride Comes Before a Fall (403) There was once a boy, the grandson of a nice successful businessman, who found himself an orphan when he was still in his teens. When his grandfather died, the family business had rapidly gone downhill, and so, he found himself alone, and with no heritage except the memory, of what a great man his grandfather had been. Casting about for something to keep body and soul together, he entered the postal service, where the false sense of pride, which his grandfather’s reputation had given him, caused him to be at loggerheads with his fellow-workers. Well-meaning relatives advised him to complete his secondary school education privately while he was still in service, and urged him also to look after the family farm, so that both occupations would bring him a steady and decent income. He would also be able to improve his position in the postal service once he completed his education. He could even become a post-master if he so desired. But somehow the young man had developed such a superiority complex, that he did not see fit to follow their advice, and, one day, when he finally fell foul of the postmaster himself, he left the postal service in high dudgeon.

At this stage, he was still so obsessed by family pride that he neither completed his education nor took in another job. He simply loitered around the town, with nothing to do except sing the praises of his family’s past renown. In some strange way this seemed more satisfying to his pride than bettering his own position. He did not even care to farm the family land himself, but gave it over to cultivators who farmed it in return for a share of the produce. In the course of time he married and had a family. By the time he had his sixth child, it was clear that the livelihood he gained in this way was pitifully inadequate. The problem of supporting his family became more and more overwhelming, but he would never admit that the path he had chosen for himself had been totally wrong. He was still to proud for that. Instead of facing up to what his life had actually been, he blamed all his difficulties upon his relatives. His inability to come to grips with reality pushed him further and further downhill. Within a few years from that point he became a physically and mentally broken man.