Being good is highly underrated.
I have often noticed that people who proclaim their brilliance often come a cropper. Been there, done that. Often times the best thing in the world is to face an adversary who underestimates you and overestimates himself.
In matters of being good, the main thing is not to take pride in being good.
It is by pride that Lucifer fell, and I have always feared that I am very susceptible to such pride. A sense of humor about vanity helps.
“Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble!’, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages a you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you may awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
“in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed“
-oh how that proud spirit hates to be laughed at and how that evil spirit loses its grip… when We stay in His Grace (and Humor).
But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world: And they follow him that are of his side. Wisdom 2:24-25
And nowadays, having letters after your name have become a self congratulatory confirmation of how smart the person supposedly is. Between DEI and grade inflation where everyone is given a degree as a participation trophy even if they can’t read or critically think to any degree, this has become a cruel joke. My wife, who never graduated from college because she became a full-time mom and grandmom, used to say the more degrees someone had, the dumber they became. I tried not to take that personally. She used to say “just use common sense”, something that’s not so common anymore. And to prove Don’s point about being good being underrated, when I was praying about whether or not to ask my wife to marry me the one thing I consistently heard was that she was good. That proved to be true for 47 years.