Who Even Sent Me?

I’ve never encountered a proud person and I don’t know how it feels but I have been called proud by someone and it was funny. It was funny because everyone around who witnessed the incident laughed and others even asked the person if he understood what the word proud meant.

I think it was during a group presentation and I was chosen as the presenter but I really didn’t want to because I was dealing with catarrh. Thankfully, I went through with the presentation and it got to the questions part. Anyone who has been in a group assignment will know there’s always that one person who doesn’t participate.

Such a person always knows nothing about the work and no matter how hard he tries to read the findings to get ready for the presentation, there’s no assurance that the he would be able to answer all questions. My group had a member like that and unfortunately he couldn’t even attempt the questions he got asked.

If there’s anything about group presentations that I hate, it’s how everyone gets the same mark at the end of the presentation. When I realized he was sinking in the questions, I started using style to rescue him. I tried answering his questions and started defending his wrong answers for him. The thing is, myself together with other team members did a serious research for that work and we were proud of ourselves.

Talk of so many days of hardwork. Sleepless nights and burnt candles. We invested so much resources because we knew what we wanted. Someone even had to travel for one particular soil analysis. On a normal day, I wouldn’t have even cared about what was going to happen but the faces of my team members pushed me to act. They looked sad but in a violent way and I knew this person’s responses were all over the bar. Nu-uh, I wasn’t ready to let one person weigh us down.

In the end, my group had the highest mark and while the other members were happy, he came at me saying I was doing “too known”. I had the members in the group fighting for me. I was doing a lot of thinking in the background, asking myself if what I did was even worth it. If the person was even worth saving. And I realized it wasn’t just for the person, it was for the whole group.

Anyway, for the rest of the term, our go-to greeting in class was too known because of what he said. It didn’t make sense that he said that to the person trying to save him. If I had pride, wouldn’t I have respected myself and kept my cool while you embarrass yourself and the team?

From where I stand, I honestly think there’s nothing wrong with being proud of something you did especially if you put in a lot of work. It’s really fine to acknowledge your hardwork but while at it, just don’t ruin it with arrogance.