What Humility Means To Me

What is the driving force of a young individual? What is it that urges them to move forward and look for new challenges and achievements? This is a question that has as many answers as there are people on Planet Earth who would try to reply to it. Some people might say that it is the ambition, others might say it is the desire to become famous, still others would just say it is the willingness to surpass the expectations of your parents or those of your loved ones. If I was asked this question, while admitting that all these responses are right, I would answer that it is the ability to remain humble whatever your achievement or your aptitude is. These are not just words, since I do believe that the moment you lose sight of your humility you fail to see the further need to improve and develop and to accept new challenges that life keeps in store for you.

So, what is humility? To me it is the ability to be honest with yourself and to bring out the best in yourself without getting too proud or arrogant. It is your inner strength that enables you to accept your weaknesses without underestimating your aptitudes. It is the skill of being able to appreciate help and express gratitude without undermining your self-esteem. It is the willingness to be open to new ideas without over criticizing yourself. As far as I am concerned, I have to confess that it has not always been easy to be humble especially in terms of academic performance. Whenever I am asked to introduce myself it is often difficult for me to speak about my accomplishments, since I am afraid that I can end up sounding too proud of myself. But both in terms of academic and personal achievements I never let success go to my head. It can sometimes be difficult but I mastered this strategy first of all thanks to my parents who never praised me too much however big my achievement was. (For instance, even after leaving school with honors I did not hear a lot of praise). When I was younger I did not understand why they had this attitude, but now I know for sure that they just wanted to challenge me. And in this they were right. This attitude urged me to want to improve my performance even more and to look for ways to excel in life. This desire resulted in being accepted by Drew University where I am doing major in Business.

To conclude, I would like to emphasize that humility is not about being unaware of your strengths. On the contrary, it helps you to be better aware of yourself. It helps you to be generous and thankful. It makes people around you appreciate you as a human being. As Rick Warren said in his book entitled the Purpose Drive life, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. ”