“For as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to wish it. The pride of having his judgment right hardens his heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, the accomplishment or the failure of his predictions.”

It is a disquieting tendency, one we’d rather pretend didn’t exist; but it does and is only made worse if it is ignored.

It isn’t that the assumed worst would not have happened anyway. Events are set in motion that most of us have little control over. In our frustration at what we see as a clumsy, misguided lurch toward disaster (or worse) we voice outrage, indignation, and anger .

Indignation soon turns righteous. Our hearts are pure and our cause is just.

But pride and a desire for vindication belies the truer nature of our professed righteousness and makes that cause less just than we’d care to admit. Being proved right becomes more important than the real cause we claim to believe in; our compassion is diminished for we lose sight, even if just a little bit, of an underlying tragedy.

Even though we’d certainly disavow such feelings, we must acknowledge the darkness that lies buried in all of us.

When we don’t face the frailties of human nature head-on those frailties harden and grow and become the true enemy that we embolden.