Two people have now told me I come across as arrogant. I cannot see it myself, and I have no idea how you even work on something like pride.

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

Proverbs collects patterns observed across generations of watching people rise and fall, often in royal courts where the fall was very public. The order inside the proverb is the point: the attitude comes first and the collapse follows, which means pride is visible long before it is costly. Everyone standing near the proud man tends to see it well before he does.

“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

Paul writes to a church with a quiet rivalry problem, and his correction is not a lecture about humility but a change of attention. He asks them to look at other people's interests, which is a doable instruction, unlike ordering someone to feel less important. Then he points to Jesus setting down status voluntarily. Humility here is a direction of gaze rather than an emotion.