I am kinder, wiser and holier than you

Are you getting tripped-up by the unholy trinity of excessive emotional laboring, intellectual arrogance, and spiritual materialism?

Image by setthayos sansuwansri from Pixabay

You’re probably familiar with the seven deadly sins. Well, here are three more — excessive emotional laboring, intellectual arrogance, and spiritual materialism — which, when thrown together, can result in the ultimate ego trip.

Emotional laboring: Managing, regulating or masking your desires and emotions — in particular the negative ones — in order to better anticipate and support the needs and feelings of others. An example of an emotional laborer is a person who always does their best to encourage, stay calm, or be nice so as to carry the “burden” of their friend, family member or co-worker’s worries, anger or sadness. This is all very sweet, but excessive emotional laboring is when you labor so extensively and intensively that you feel like a martyr, you secretly resent those who you are being stalwart and dependable for, and you think you are more “together” than them.

Intellectual arrogance: Relishing feelings of self-satisfaction as it pertains to your own intellectual abilities. Believing you have superior knowledge, reasoning skills, critical thinking capabilities and powers of imagination than most other people. Believing that most of the time, you are right and others are wrong.