Many of us were taught that it means dumping all our pride on the ground and stamping on it, since pride is the root of so much evil. What if the main thing most of us need to repent of, is not our arrogance but our despair, sometimes our utter despair. It may be our despair that things will never change for us, or for our world, that we will never change, and that no matter what we say or do we are stuck forever in the rut we have made of our lives, or the mess someone else has made of it. It is the despair that there is no hope for us, no beginning again, no chance of a fresh start. That kind of despair is a problem.
Despair can happen in all kinds of ways.
We can turn our backs and close our wallets to those people and to those projects which we have determined haven't a chance of making any difference in the world. We can become victims of our own despair. A little girl is abused by her grandfather and forty years later, although he is long dead and gone, his hands are still on her. She has not married. She will not let anyone get close.