I have determined that I have a pride problem. I became acutely aware of it on our hike to Mirror Lake while on our recent trip to Yosemite. This particular hike is considered easy (you walk on a road) and is only about 1.2 miles long each way. I don't do much hiking these days because of my extensive back problems, but I wanted to see Mirror Lake and the only way to see it, unless you have a handicapped placard, is to walk there.
We saw this beautiful river on the way to the lake.
As we walked, my back kept hurting more and more. I had to stop a few times to sit down in an effort to relieve the pain. I told Alan that if a car passes us I was going to hitch a ride. About 10 minutes later, as a van went past us, I jokingly said to him, "I should have hitched a ride." Evidently, the mother in the van heard me say that because once we reached the lake I immediately sat down on a rock to ease the pain. Next thing I knew, a Hispanic man came up to me and told me that his wife had heard my comment about hitching a ride. When he saw me trying to recover, he decided to offer us a ride back. He said that they would be there for about 30 minutes and to look for them if we wanted a ride. The offer was neither accepted nor declined, but we did thank him for his kind offer.
About 20 minutes later, we were ready to leave. Alan considered having me wait there while he walked to the car so he could pick me up, but we didn't have a handicapped placard so I would have felt guilty if he had done that. Although I didn't want to, I decided to just walk back. I would be the martyr. I could have accepted the ride, but my pride got the better of me.
Every step was painful. Again, I had to stop frequently to rest my back. We saw the van pass us when we were about 2/3 of the way back to our car. I longed to be in that van!
After what seemed like an extremely long walk back, we finally reached the car. I was so happy to get there! I desperately needed to rest my back and get a drink of water as we hadn't taken any with us.
Years ago, a prophet named Ezra Taft Benson gave a talk entitled "Beware of Pride." He called pride a sin. Since hearing that talk and studying it myself, I have tried to be aware of situations in which I am being prideful. Pride has many components to it. Some are sins of omission. It is very difficult to not be prideful. It encompasses so many different aspects of life. Knowing I'm guilty of pride, it looks like I have some repenting to do!
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The day we took that hike, I logged the most steps I can remember taking since I started using the Fitbit. Here's the proof: 15,714 steps! No wonder my back hurt so much!
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