What i have learned 
First of all when talking about humility people always assume you are talking about timidity or becoming a wallflower. Instead, humility simply requires a person to think of his abilities and his actions as no greater, and no lesser, than they really are. Real humility then mandates that a person knows and is completely honest with themselves. He/She honestly assesses what, and to what magnitude he/she possess talents and gifts, struggles and weaknesses.
What one needs to realise is that, each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature-while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.
As a young girl in my village , pride is what kept me going. The fact that my grades where better that the rest of the class gave me some sort of satisfaction untill we all had to go to University and i found myself at a Technical college- with my high marks ofcourse. It was the talk of the time in my neighbourhood.I was sitting in a technical college with my high marks studying with people that dont even have matric.Life gave me a slap in the face. Did i learn? No! I continued with my pride.I would laugh at how most of the students were baffled by the things i found very simple.
I completed my senior level at the Technical College and decided to futher my studies.Thank God!!this time I got in the Univerity program. Now i was back in the game . Im am now at a University studying towards a respectable career and no one could tell me nothing.Well, so i thought.
We had written our first semester test and waiting for our results. I had studied and was so sure would get very high marks.News flash- I had failed half of my semester tests and to my suprise, the people i was a explaining a few things to, passed all their tests. The begining of the second semester i saw myself repeating one subject. It wasnt easy and my predicament had nothing to do with me failing the subject, i was ashamed, that the people i thought i was way smarter than, had passed and left me behind.I was no longer the best student..i was not a bad student either, My pride was just standing in my way.
It was exhausting trying to compete with the geniuses in my class.It was even more exhausting not being able to ask for help beacuse my pride wont let me.
When that semester ended and i was still not the number one student, had a few friends due tio my despicable pride. I knew I had to rethink they way I view things.Instead of whining about how so and so got better marks that I, I decided to celebrate what I got and congratulate those that got better grades than I did- they had worked hard for what they got and so did I.It was not a competition!!
The liberation than came with being honest with myself and celebrating other people's success is unexplainable .And to this day,i continue to practice humility, at my work place, in my relationships and to everyone I come across.
I have learned that no person is better than the other. Theres always something to learn from another person.
Pride makes us artificial, Humility makes us real
First of all when talking about humility people always assume you are talking about timidity or becoming a wallflower. Instead, humility simply requires a person to think of his abilities and his actions as no greater, and no lesser, than they really are. Real humility then mandates that a person knows and is completely honest with themselves. He/She honestly assesses what, and to what magnitude he/she possess talents and gifts, struggles and weaknesses.
To me humility is the absence of pride.Most of our lifes we are taught to think pride is a good thing, that to get ahead we should always make ourself seem better that the next person. I grew to realise this is wrong beacuse pride functions only when comparing others to yourself.It forces one to base their self-worth on how they stack up to others.Whereas , we should focus on ourself and how we can improve.
What one needs to realise is that, each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature-while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.
As a young girl in my village , pride is what kept me going. The fact that my grades where better that the rest of the class gave me some sort of satisfaction untill we all had to go to University and i found myself at a Technical college- with my high marks ofcourse. It was the talk of the time in my neighbourhood.I was sitting in a technical college with my high marks studying with people that dont even have matric.Life gave me a slap in the face. Did i learn? No! I continued with my pride.I would laugh at how most of the students were baffled by the things i found very simple.
I completed my senior level at the Technical College and decided to futher my studies.Thank God!!this time I got in the Univerity program. Now i was back in the game . Im am now at a University studying towards a respectable career and no one could tell me nothing.Well, so i thought.
We had written our first semester test and waiting for our results. I had studied and was so sure would get very high marks.News flash- I had failed half of my semester tests and to my suprise, the people i was a explaining a few things to, passed all their tests. The begining of the second semester i saw myself repeating one subject. It wasnt easy and my predicament had nothing to do with me failing the subject, i was ashamed, that the people i thought i was way smarter than, had passed and left me behind.I was no longer the best student..i was not a bad student either, My pride was just standing in my way.
It was exhausting trying to compete with the geniuses in my class.It was even more exhausting not being able to ask for help beacuse my pride wont let me.
When that semester ended and i was still not the number one student, had a few friends due tio my despicable pride. I knew I had to rethink they way I view things.Instead of whining about how so and so got better marks that I, I decided to celebrate what I got and congratulate those that got better grades than I did- they had worked hard for what they got and so did I.It was not a competition!!
The liberation than came with being honest with myself and celebrating other people's success is unexplainable .And to this day,i continue to practice humility, at my work place, in my relationships and to everyone I come across.
I have learned that no person is better than the other. Theres always something to learn from another person.
Pride makes us artificial, Humility makes us real
