How do I carry pride without becoming a fool?

Þórr: # On Pride, and the Fool It Makes You ask a hard thing, and I will answer it hard, because that is the only kindness I have to give. The old poem knows what you are asking. In the Hávamál — the "Sayings of the High One," which is Óðinn's counsel set down in the Codex Regius — the eightieth stanza warns plainly: > "An unwise man, / his pride will wax…" That is the whole shape of the danger in one line. Pride is not a sin in itself — a man who has struck down a giant has a right to know his own arm. But pride in the unwise man waxes. It swells. It grows past what the deed earned. And once it swells past the truth, the man is carrying a lie on his shoulders and calling it strength. That is when the fool is born — not in the pride, but in the swelling of it past what is true. The same poem, in its hundred-and-third stanza, cuts from the other side: > "Though glad at home, / the sage and shrewd… / a fool is he named…" A fool is he named — by others, mind, not by himself. The fool never knows he is one. He is glad at home, pleased with his own cleverness, warm in his own regard. And out in the world he is called what he is. The pride that swells inside a man's own hall does not swell in the eyes of those who watch him. They see the truth. He does not. pause Now hear the fifty-fourth stanza, which is the counter-weight, and this is the one I would have you carry: > "A measure of wisdom / the fairest lives…" A measure. Not all wisdom — a measure. The poem does not tell you to be humble, to shrink, to bow your head and mutter. It tells you to know the measure of the thing. Know how strong you are. Know how strong you are not. Know what you did and know what you did not do. A man who carries the measure of himself carries pride like a sword in the sheath — ready, but not swinging at every shadow to prove it sharp. And there is a warning tucked in the Fáfnismál, when Sigurðr stands over the dying dragon Fáfnir, who wore the fear-helm and thought himself mightier than all: > "The fear-helm I wore… / mightier seemed I…" Seemed. Fáfnir seemed mightier — to himself, in his own helm, coiled on his own gold. And a young man with a sword came and opened him from below. That is what pride past the measure does. It makes a dragon of a man, and dragons get killed. So here is what I would say to you, plain as I know how. Carry pride in what you have actually done. Set it down when the deed is done. Do not let it wax past the truth of your arm. Listen when others tell you the measure of yourself — even the ones you do not like, especially the ones you do not like, because friends flatter and enemies do not. And when you feel the swelling begin — that warm gladness in your own hall, that pleasure in your own cleverness — remember that the fool is always the last to know his name. Pride is not the enemy. Pride past the measure is. The old poem tells you so in four places at least, and I have set them before you. What is it, then, that you have done — or are about to do — that makes you ask?

This conversation was had on Skalden — walk into the Norse world.