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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Do you have that one thing in your mind that pushes you on? That one thing forever tattooed into your mind that keeps you going, even when all you want to do is eat food and fall asleep and not have to face tomorrow. With the end of school coming up faster than I can eat McDonalds cheeseburgers and apple pies, I find myself drowning in schoolwork and just wanting to go to bed as soon as I get home. I get overwhelmed, my mind goes blank and nothing gets done. At times like this, this one thing is sometimes the only thing that keeps me going and pushing on. I must have been about 12. We had friends over for a fondue dinner and my dad was talking about my brother and sister, something about soccer and whatever they were doing. He was having a proud dad moment saying how great his kids were and when he was done I jokingly said “ya and all I do is sit on a horse”. He then said “ imagine trying to be proud of that”, that phrase slapped me right in the face and shut me up. For a long while that knocked me down and I felt like a worthless piece of shit, wasting my life. Worst of all it made me feel like my parents aren't proud of me and that my sibling were way more loved. I mean I can't blame him, I hadn't really done much to be proud of and I didn't support his favourite sports etc. Over the last couple years I have started to show my horse along with shetland ponies and different breeds of draft horses. Not to toot my own horn or anything but i'm not all that bad. Last year my dad was around for one of the shows I was showing at, he got to watch me show in many classes and I won a good many of them with my horse then with the daft horses as well. He was all excited and congratulated me warmly. I cant explicitly remember him telling me that he was proud of me but he may have, I just don't redeem, but i'll always remember that night when he implied that he wasn't. Later in the show season when I came home with six 1st place ribbons and three 2nds and a big trophy from the IPE, he was very excited and proud. So is that all it took, doing well at horse shows or a check to prove my efforts? I’m no parent but I dont think its a good thing to show your children that you will be proud of them once they have won something and only then. I believe showing your children that you love them and are proud of them no matter what place they come in to be important and ya that means actually saying it. If you're a parent or want a tip to help be a good parent, I strongly suggest reading this.
Maybe he was proud of me back then and only joking. Regardless, I work hard to do better and win more, to make him proud. I work at this as if I was trying proving him wrong, because I love proving anyone wrong and surprising people that think I can’t do something. But I guess I’m just trying to make my dad proud- just like most other kids out there, trying to prove themselves worthy and feeling like they are falling just short. I wonder if this will always be a driving force for me and if I will ever get over that time he said that, or will it always be at the top of my memories of him. Whatever it was or will be, it’s just fuel to the fire. Matthew F |
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