What is the most important thing to youth these days? You could argue many things, friendships, happiness.. But one of the possible answers would probably be something along the lines of “Fame” or “Social Media Statu s”. While neither of these things are inherently bad they can potentially breed one of our worst traits: Pride. What is pride? Pride itself can be good and bad, it is the feeling of accomplishment and feeling good. But this is a double edged sword, as it can also mutate into an inflated feeling of superiority and power. Pride keeps us ignorant, if we feel like we know everything, then we feel no need to learn more. Entire wars have been fought over pridefulness; you could take the crusades for example. The idea of superiority and pride of one's side's religion started a brutal conflict. This is why pride is one of the worst sins under human potential. However, as to everything in existence, there is an opposing force to pride: Humility. The antithesis of pride Humility can be described in many ways. I understand it like this: There is always more to learn from every aspect of every moment. No matter from what or whom, there is wisdom and strength to be gleaned. Consequently, this means you would have to lower your view of your own importance. You may think, “That's not right, I see all the time posters saying: Believe in yourself!” To answer that I turn to a quote from C.S Lewis, True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. This means that instead of spending so much time worrying about yourself, take the time to worry and learn from others. That way, you will improve yourself without even trying. Take Language as a basic example, you could believe that you have mastered english and there is no need for you to learn any more. Or, you could apply the speakings of different people and literature into your own lexicon. Therefore improving your understanding. We could perhaps take a more relevant example. People who think they are amazing drivers, superior drivers, tend to crash more often. While humble drivers are people who view themselves as just a driver, and that every driver makes mistakes; so they should be always cautious. There are unlimited examples of pride in our everyday life, just not enough examples of humility. That's why it's so important to practice it yourself. How to be humble It stems from realizing your own self worth. As a human, you are worth more than any amount of money, but you aren't superior or more valuable to anyone else. Same goes for ideologies, political standpoints, religions, none of these things are superior to each other. A truly humble person could learn something from each one. Back to the topic, you need to realize what you are unintentionally believing. It is commonplace in society to be told that you should be proud of yourself and to accomplish higher and higher status. While these aren't bad superficially they ride a fine line between excessive pridefulness and just being proud of yourself. In order to be humble you need to walk this fine line, I'm sure there are humble people who are proud of their accomplishments. It's just important you don't let that pride swell. Here are some steps you can follow to develop humility.
Why this is important to me
Its great to have supportive parents right? What happens when they are too supportive, you get me. For all my life my parents have been telling me that I am an incredibly great, intelligent person, destined for greatness. While praise is good, excessive praise is not. As a child, there was nowhere for this praise to go other than my ego. As a teenager, my pridefulness swelled as I believed I had superior intelligence to anyone else (which is obviously wrong). Even now, I struggle with trying to be humble. But it's important. Without humility, you are destined to push others away from you as you believe you are more and more important and superior. It's only because I realized what was going on that I managed to stop myself, and I'm glad I did. As I said before, no one is superior to anyone else in any situation. I will continue to practice Humility as I strive to be myself. *Disclaimer. I am in no way bashing my parents, I'm sure they thought they were doing what was best for my growth. *Disclaimer 2. There is another blog here about Pride, it talks about Motivation and Accomplishment, in other words. It seems that the author is simply proud of themselves, and is not a prideful person (in a bad way). Ross B
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I can still vividly remember leaving school on March 13th; I remember the nervous buzz travelling among students, the uncertainty in the air, and finally, I remember thinking the sole consequence we would face due to COVID-19 was an additional two weeks added to our spring break (something which greatly excited me). Cut to the 299th day stuck in quarantine, and I can’t help but reflect on the time spent indoors, the time lost, and the changes made not only to our everyday lives, but to our health, both mental and physical. One of the most notable changes we’ve experienced as a society is the lack of social interaction, and the limits/boundaries surrounding seeing your friends/family, or people in general. Humans are inherently social beings, and require an extent of social interaction and stimulation to reach their full potential i.e. happiness. This is not an observation, but a fact: when interacting with another individual in person, our brain releases large amounts of dopamine and serotonin, two key components in producing happiness. When lacking social interaction, our brain is unable to produce serotonin and dopamine as quickly as it normally would, resulting in diminished moods, and in extreme cases, depression. This, combined with a fear of the virus itself, and stress (both externally and internally) make it quite difficult for anyone, regardless of gender/race/age to cope healthily and successfully during this pandemic. As a 17 year old, I’m lucky enough to be with family and not completely isolated, but the struggle of having a drastically different life than last year is something that I still have trouble processing. I would consider myself to be a fairly social person, or an extrovert, and am used to often being with my friends, or going out - it feels wrong to be indoors all the time, and I feel as though I’m doing something wrong, or wasting my teenage years by spending all my time inside. Because I’m a high school senior, I also feel a great deal of frustration at the timing of this whole ordeal; I’ve spent my childhood and the last four years of my life looking forward to this year and graduation, and the fact I’m spending most of my classes isolated from my friends and unable to spend time with my classmates is a thought that honestly makes me really sad. Anger is a very prevalent emotion for me recently, and I notice myself dwelling on what could have been, or what I’ve missed out on, as well as self pity and deprecation. It helps to remind myself that others are in the same position, and I’m fortunate enough to have it better than many other people right now. All seriousness aside, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced over these past nine months is boredom, and ways to deal with all the free time recently amassed. What follows are fun and healthy ways you can safely spend your remaining time in quarantine:
I hope these 10 suggestions are able to help pass time, and I hope 2021 brings us all a lot better than 2020 did! Stay safe, stay home, and wear a mask! :) Callie F https://dailyillini.com/special-sections/2020/04/09/bored-in-quarantine-twenty-ways-to-kill-time/ Do you know anyone that has achieved something great all by themselves? Life is a team sport. We all rely on each other to do things everyday. Whether it’s something small like borrowing a pencil or something big like borrowing a lot of money from a friend to buy something. It is a combination of trust and reliability that helps us through life. You trust that your friend is going to pay you back. Your friend is very reliable so they do. A sports team is made up of many individuals. Each person has different strengths and weaknesses. Even though they are all different, they work together when playing to achieve a common goal. They rely on and trust each other to try their hardest every time they arrive at a practice or a game. Knowing many people are relying on you to make that pass or score that goal, it pushes you to do your best because you don’t want to let them down. Doesn’t matter what sport. The importance of a team is that they become your second family. Sometimes someone is having a bad day and that’s okay. Their team will understand that and help build them up. If you make a mistake in a game there’s many other players that will help fix it. Everyone on the team contributes in different ways to achieve a team success. The Toronto Raptors won the NBA finals 2019 because of many people. Everyone that played, the players on the bench for support, the coaches, and many more people. One person can’t win a team sport by themselves. Before every game my team sings and dances in the change room. It gets everyone pumped up and ready to play. During a game it’s the best feeling scoring a goal. Especially when it's a close score and you start sprinting to your team to give eachother a big hug while you jump up and down with huge smiles across your faces. As fun as winning is, you can’t always win. You win as a team and you lose as a team. It is not one player's fault that the team loses. Being part of any team is very beneficial and helps develop many skills. Depending on the kind of team some skills you could attain are communication, perseverance, leadership, determination, health, strength, cooperation, organization, focus, and problem-solving. You can read more on the benefits to playing a team sport like academic performance and mental health on https://armyandnavyacademy.org/blog/beyond-physical-fitness-the-benefits-of-playing-team-sports/ . A team doesn’t just play a sport together, it supports every player through their life. Think about all your family, friends, teammates, teachers, and other people that have impacted your life. Now try to imagine where you would be in life without their support. You may be fine without them, but you wouldn’t have their help that you need to reach your full potential.
Taylor K. |
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