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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