Day Twenty-Four // March 24 // Vanity & Pride “It would astonish if not amuse the older citizens to learn that I (a strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working at ten dollars per month) have been put down as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.” – Abraham Lincoln –
The rotten fruit of selfishness too often begins with misplaced pride and vanity. We forget that there is no such thing as a self-made person. We are helped and blessed by others consistently; and when we lose sight of that, we lose our way. Coach Barry Switzer used to love to say: “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. That mentality should never be said of us. We constantly need to check our attitudes. We continually need to be aware of those danger words: I, me and mine. To be generous, we cannot let selfishness seize us with its empty and thankless hands.”