Wednesday, February 21, 2007

A Little Humility Goes A Long Way

It's been awhile since my last post. I admit that I don't have anything remarkable to contribute today.

Let's see I had a wonderful President's Day weekend. It was really nice to see Al, Rachel, and Amy. I got to talk a lot to Al's mom, who I truly adore.

I did a ton of driving, if you've read Al's blog: http://risetovotesir.blogspot.com you'll get a pretty good idea of what the weekend entailed.

It's funny, looking back on so many things that I said when I was younger. Like I would never do long distance, date outside my race, etc. I thought I knew so much about the way that life worked.

I don't think most people realize especially when they are younger, that as much as they think they know how the world works--they don't have a clue. Life will challenge your theories every chance that it can. It's important to be open-minded, to take the opportunity to learn from anyone that you come into contact with. That's perhaps even a drunk on the street or a bumbling idiot.

My favorite quote is by Winston Churchill. I'm going to paraphrase it: the wise man knows that even the fool is right sometimes.

Humility goes a long way. I've learned the lesson and I've accepted that I'm one of life's students. I look forward to what further mysteries/lessons it plans to unveil.

8 comments:

coldploy said...

I feel the same way too. Believe it or not, many lessons I've learned were already advised by my mom. But you know when we were young, we never listened to our parents.

My favorite quote is by my mom. Hope you understand it because I have to translate into Engllish: The only thing you have from your kids is their boides, not their hearts. You can raise them, feed them but you can't force them to do things.

Judy said...

Hello!

Humility is indeed a gift, once you accept it. It frees you up in so many ways. Rather than forcing you in directions of submission to others, it affords you opportunities, as you say, to go places you might never have gone. It also brings peace to others and a way out of conflict.

Wise man, Excalibur. Thanks also for the kind words on my blog (slicebyslice585.blogspot.com)

Shameless plug, I know. I'm not always humble, unfortunately, but I'm working on it. (:

Judy said...

Rats--

wrong number--

should have been humble--

slicebyslice584.blogspot.com

Yikes!

T1 said...

forgive my typing my girl is snuggling up to me while i type but i remember when you said the race thing and i always thought it isnt the kind of thing that happens by deciding-does that sound right. it like brown eyes or blue-you never know who will capture your heart. I always said I will never sate a man with a kid and look where i am..... sugar cube says hi u8ncle jam

Excalibur said...

Your mom seems like a bright woman & she obviously passed it along to you coldploy.

Hello, Judy. Thanks for visiting my blog. I completely agree with you. Plug away!

Excalibur said...

You are so right too T1. Tell sugarcube I said hi as well.

Al said...

hahahh I swear every day I have those moments when I get in a bind and say "SH*T! my parents were right all along! ARGH!" The good thing is that usually it's not the end of the world when something I've done against my parent's advice has gone wrong. Probably because they threatened to remove my limbs if I did certain illegal/dangerous activities, and I happen to be too fond of my arms and legs to even think about those things. They let me figure out the rest though, and I thank them for that, because that's how you learn, by making mistakes. Good post, dear.

Excalibur said...

Ha, ha, I think if we listened to our parents all the time we'd be maladjusted. I say that because some times it's not enough to know that you shouldn't do something because someone tells you not to. Some times you need to experience it for yourself for the lesson to set in. An example is how do you teach a child what hot is? You can tell them don't touch it, because it's hot. Sooner or later they will touch it. Then they have something in their memory banks to tell them what hot is. Such is life, some lessons we can learn from parents/teachers/loved ones/the world at large--vicariously or through the exchange of words of wisdom. Others we need to get burned ourselves.