Reflection before I hit 30: Countdown to Humility
Why a countdown to humility?
For me humility has been a journey understanding the meaning behind the word and putting action behind the word. Many of you may know me as an outspoken, extroverted and cocky person. I want to say this was not always so.
As a child growing up, I was the complete opposite. I was introverted, and shy. And, there is a psychological reason behind this attitude; but that is a personal story for another time. If it weren't for the help of my parents, who would tell me to stop being grouchy; and high school jocks telling me to be more confident in myself I would have never been more social.
Now, I tested my social waters in college; and this was the first time I truly tested it. In high school and middle school, I didn't have a social life. In fact, it was always about goals and ambitions. Many of my family and closest friends knew how packed my day - to - day schedule consisted to the point that I was sleeping between an average of two to four hours per day - only catching up my sleep on the weekends! Some people from church had asked my parents and I how I was able to maintain a schedule while still maintaining on the high school honor roll. To be honest, I didn't know. I guess it was my drive of wanting to excel that sustained me.
Nevertheless, my well - being, psychological circle - a circle that consists of social, academics and physical - was imbalanced. More than 90 percent of my time was devoted towards academics and physical with very little time to social activities. Of course, this drained my way of being able to learn how to properly interact and socially interact with people. Furthermore, this made me both shy and awkward around social situations which resulted in me looking prideful.
Over this past decade, I have had to learn a delicate balance between being who I am as a person and how I interact with people. I realize that being considerate about other people's feelings is far more important than how I should act in every situation. In other words, just because I can act that way doesn't mean I should act that way every time. In fact, it started my journey towards humility.
The most important lesson that I have learned about humility compared to other noble characteristics is that it is an endless lesson. Why? Well, C.S. Lewis said it best derived from his book Mere Christianity. He stated:
In other words, I have learned that humility isn't something that I can think I am good at doing. It is something that people notice. In fact, I taught myself a lesson in my early 20's that the moment I catch myself saying that I am humble, because I believed that I am humble, does that, in fact, make me humble? It does not. Why? Because, I was the one that said it. In fact, that would make me prideful because I already thought that I am humble; and I didn't need to humble myself ANYMORE.
This faulty thinking tripped me up in my teen years, and I had to learn this lesson the harsh way with my outspoken personality into my early 20's years. It took me awhile until I learned this lesson, but I had lost friends along the way; and I had upset family members. This wake - up taught me that I needed to change.
And, that change was humility.
Earlier I stated that I needed to find that delicate balance between being me and how I interact with people. I know that I can come off as arrogant when I share things with people, but I hope that was never my intention. My intention is to make people feel included as I want people to come along for the ride. Since this is a new decade, and I am learning to be more humble - the most important trait I am improving - I hope that I can learn from people; and apologize to people that I have hurt along the way.
I hope this new decade in my life can be an endless lesson of humility. As I learn these lessons, and as I learn to improve my character, I know that it may be a steep price to pay. Nevertheless, the steeper the price the more priceless will be the lesson of humility.
These lessons I look forward to taking with me into my new decade, and growing from it. It isn't over as this is my countdown to humility.
An important reflection before I hit 30.
JOURNAL SIDE NOTE:
I know that as each week passes, I will be sharing personal things about my life in these blog posts - something I am careful of sharing - but I know these lessons have been important in my life that I felt needed to be shared.
Furthermore, I have read other blog posts who have reflected upon their 20's before hitting 30 writing small blurbs about lessons they learned. However, I have learned a lot this past decade that I didn't want a 30 page blog post. I wanted to make this blog post easy to read; and hopefully, enjoyable.
Next week, the lesson I want to share will be about boomerangs; and how that lesson helped me in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment