We’ve all heard the expression, “Pride goes before the fall,” but what exactly does it mean? Prideful people are very taken with themselves in that they have an inordinately high opinion of their importance or worth. In other words, they have very large egos. The problem is that in addition to being large, these egos are also very fragile and require a continuous stream of praise and recognition to remain intact. Consequently, these people find it extremely difficult to admit it when they’ve made a mistake and they don’t deal with failure well at all. Instead of learning from their mistakes and failures, they prefer to point fingers and blame others—some even resort to lying to cover up their mistakes. This not only alienates those around them, but it dooms them to repeat those same mistakes in the future. Eventually this behavior pattern catches up with them and leads to their downfall. As the 19th century British social theorist, John Ruskin put it, “In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.” Keep this in mind if you’re ever tempted to take yourself too seriously.