Though the same language is used of the person who is proud of his accomplishments and that person who is prideful, the differences between them is profound. One lives a life worthy of attention and the other spends life seeking to gain attention.
When we are driven by vain conceit, we become slaves to performance. In our desperate quest to gain the praise of others, we end up living our lives as inauthentic performers. The tragedy of selfcenteredness is that our center is essentially hollow. We become who we think other people want us to be. We surrender the person known only in the dreams of God to become a person shaped by the whims of others. The arrogant man is less himself and more the sum total of everyone else's opinion.
When we are driven by vain conceit, we become slaves to performance. In our desperate quest to gain the praise of others, we end up living our lives as inauthentic performers. The tragedy of selfcenteredness is that our center is essentially hollow. We become who we think other people want us to be. We surrender the person known only in the dreams of God to become a person shaped by the whims of others. The arrogant man is less himself and more the sum total of everyone else's opinion.
[Erwin McManus, Uprising p. 28-29]
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