Humility

I think humility is absolutely necessary in life.

Some years ago I naively asked God for wisdom, thinking I that was all I needed. Little did I know that would give me a snowball effect of life lessons. With wisdom, comes understanding, and with understanding comes patience and with that humility.

WISDOM was a difficult lesson because my eyes were opened to the "real wold." Its ups and downs, happiness and sadness, and its fairness and unfairness. I actually was very sad to learn that everyone wasn't as happy as I was.  This is where UNDERSTANDING comes into place. For me, simply knowing a fact was not good enough, especially if it was a negative fact. I needed to understand why and how things could be one way or the other. I guess this, in my mind, would allow me the opportunity to find a solution. Even if I didn't or couldn't understand everything, it made me feel better that I was trying. But I have found that in gaining understanding, I also gained a sense of arrogance. No one could really sway my opinions because I did the research. This can be very helpful and useful when fighting for something you believe in, except even when I didn't know the answers I would truly believe that I did. I could even convince others that I did. It is very dangerous to have that kind of influence if you do not how to use it appropriately.

HUMILITY. This has been a very difficult lesson, and still is, because with humility, there must be some sort of balance. Being humble is not being weak or to be "ok" with any and everything, nor is it being boisterous and all knowing. I tend to go to extremes, so it was hard to find that middle ground. It is my experience that God has a way of humbling us. It's really part of this life long process we go through. I have found this lesson to be exceptionally hard because I lacked PATIENCE. It is Something I do not inherently have. Like at all. But I will get back to patience.

So I've mentioned that I have been naturally pretty good at most things in other posts. It was nice being able to pick things up quickly, or understand that if I work at something, I can pick it up and become good at it. It was great for my confidence and just felt good to always be able to know that "I can." At least it was until I got older and found out that even when you do everything correctly, it still may not be enough. Being passed over for scholarship money because the people giving out the scholarship knew the other candidate or I just not being the best at anything, but really good at a lot of things.

As I began to struggle more and more, I really began to loose my confidence. I thought this was me learning how to become more humble about my abilities, but really I just became timid. I was afraid to work hard at everything, because now I knew that I could fail. Reality set in and I found out that I was not the best. I actually had professors tell me that. Or when mentioning grad school, they laughed joking saying that I wouldn't have to worry about going to whatever the top school was at the time. Or even telling me that my work was not good. Very humbling words someone who has never failed.

But even then, I was cocky because despite my lack of understanding it many areas, I was able to work around the rules and anything I lacked and still create satisfactory products. I could speak on things that I could not do, and I could even critique others on what it was supposed to look like. I acted the part, I dressed the part, and could even make connections and friends who made me feel like I actually was doing it right.

But before I got too cocky, God humbled me again by slowing me down. I had to stay an additional semester to repeat a class. Even then I fought back, worked hard, and went right back to being on top, so to speak. Even thought to myself, "Man I'm so glad I got this patience thing together." God must have found that funny because just as quickly as that arrogance crept back up, I was humbled. This time, I was physically held back.

I got in a serious car wreck about a month and a half before I completed my final semester,  causing me to fail my capstone and lose all hopes of graduating with honors. Even though I walked across that stage (well more of a hobble) I had no idea what I could do to come back this time. This time it wasn't as simple as my professors turned their backs on me, insurance companies gave me the run around after we found out my injury was serious, and doctor's lied to me because I didn't have personal insurance and they didn't want to have to wait on litigation to be paid. I was disables and about to be a college dropout. (There was no way I would do all of that work again!)

I would definitely say post car wreck was like my begin again phase. I literally can say that time was like starting over. I didn't really have anyone who could understand me, and those involved were only involved until they didn't have to be. It was just me and a severely separated shoulder, some narcotics, and my couch. I went days without moving. I barely ate. I couldn't even tie my shoes and the way insurance was acting, I had no idea when I could even schedule my surgery. 7 months of sitting in the dark barely talking to anyone can change you for better or worse. I will say I eventually got better.

Patience and Humility were born in me through that time. I actually got into a relationship during that time, with the only person in the world who could have been unhappier than I was at the time. I will never understand why this happened, but only could imagine that in some twisted way, I like being around someone more miserable than I was. Despite the heartache and wasted time of that relationship, my patience came from ealing with him. He was emotionally draining, immature, and erratic, and irresponsible, but I felt lucky that someone would want me. While I won't go into the details now, we lasted until I was able to think clearly, and he didn't need to use me anymore. It was heartbreaking because I used to pride myself on being able to discern people, but found out within 2 weeks of us being in the same city, that everything I learned about him in 6 months was lie.  The fact that I didn't slash his tires and air his dirty laundry showed me that I did gain some patience.

The Humbling process began.
By time we broke up, I was back in school (away from home), with no car, no where to live, no job, and was still severely limited in the used of my arm/shoulder. I lived on couches, and eventually found a room I could rent, but essentially I was alone again.

I didn't hit rock bottom until one night  close to the end of the semester I was working late on campus and needed to get home, about 2+ miles away. I had physical therapy and class the next day so I needed to go home to shower and get my meds, otherwise I would have just stayed on campus. My phone was cut off so I packed up everything and walked. It was around 2 in the morning and  cold and raining and all I had was a hoodie to wear. This was the first time I truly felt humility. Through the tears, frustration, pain and fatigue I made a promise to myself that I will do whatever I had to do to never experience that moment again. I have only shared these stories with a few people and there are so many more of me walking, being cold and hungry but I don't share because I felt so pathetic at the time. Looking back, I really was. Even embarrassed because I had on my outlet mall Ralph Lauren, thrift store designer bags, and sneakers I bought on sale, but could not do much for myself at the age of 24.

 I even worked in a hospital cafeteria to make some money and just have enough food to eat. But despite having no money and no food, I found that I felt fortunate to be in these positions. I was able to pray with patients, have intelligent conversations with them, give advice I even came in on my day off to wash and grease my favorite patient's hair, actions I would have never would have done before. Not because I was a bad person, but because I knew how they felt. How hard it is to be an adult and ask someone to do something like that.

Despite how sad and desperate I was then, I have found that now I am doing a little better, I will always help those who need it, I am not so mean tempered, and am more slowly to speak, and, even though I am still working on this, I do not tease people as much because I walked around hungry, clothes falling off of me, and hair undone for a very long time. I truly understand that things are not what they look like, even if it is seemingly harmless. If it wasn't for the kindness of a few, and the mean spiritedness of many, I would not be able to sit here as a 2nd semester graduate student at Georgia Tech, a school that I was denied from for undergraduate studies.