Well, as it is pride that caused the most powerful angel to be cast down from heaven, the conclusion must be the one Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh meditates upon in one of his sermons.

He mentions St. John Climacus who teaches that humility is the cure for vanity. At the same time, St. Isaac of Syria,  suggests that pride also offers a path—one leading to life, the other to death. To choose pride is to rise up in arrogant defiance, not only against people, but against God Himself. That makes our own judgment the ultimate law, a road that ends in spiritual ruin.

Humility, by contrast, is the act of surrendering to God's judgment. When we cannot ascend to God on our own strength, we must lie before Him like dry earth beneath the open sky: abandoned, helpless, parched, and desperately yearning. Only in this humble powerlessness a Christian is able to achieve holiness, the Fathers of Church claim.

"Like the sand of the sea" are our sins. And this guilt is too heavy... So many opt for keeping their hearts lukewarm.  They become unable to fear pride and vanity. In the Apocalypse, the words about lukewarmness are addressed to members of the Church (!). To those who lose a sense of reverence, not realizing their sinfulness, to those who lose a penitent feeling. Nature abhors a vacuum! 
   But it is not sin in itself or its implications that ruin all in our lives, but our unwillingness to repent. God never violates our freedom, instead He is always there with open arms waiting for the prodigal.
So when we «deeply humble» ourselves, our Lord responds with mercy and Love. Because He is Love. 
   And we know that  "love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4).

“Everything, everything has gone without return,” wrote Sergei Averintsev, “but … if some eccentric finds a volume and dusts it off, the book will call out to him, speak to him, summon him into its own inner space – and everything can begin again for that eccentric. Not having found sufficient rootedness in the broken bond of generations, not having absorbed faith ‘with mother’s milk,’ a reader of books who moves from one book to another and is led by them to the holy Book of books may receive rootedness in heaven.”

Fasting and prayer will  help in this.