Humility does not need to be Humiliating….

Cup of Coffee with Spices
Take your time!

As I write this, I am at a coffee shop using my small laptop and a new Christmas present. My son, who has helped me numerous times with all things tech based, informed a relative of mine that a great Christmas gift for me would be a wireless mouse to work alongside my little laptop.

I got some quick instructions when I opened myĀ mouse gift a couple of days ago. It went something like this: plug the USB port into your laptop, turn on the mouse, place the port here for storage……..

Sounds easy, yes? Yes, but I have always been fearful of learning something new, especially when it involves technology. I still try, but I am half scared to death when I do it. This morning, I thought for sure I would not be able to figure out where to plug the USB port into my laptop. Well, I figured it out and my computer did not crash, I did not have a meltdown and I did not make a complete fool of myself in the middle of the coffee shop. Also, my computer warned me immediately that my laptop battery was low. I took my handy dandy cord, plugged it into the wall socket and into the correct port on my computer, and viola! I can write all I want.

Why do I occasionally panic about this little stuff? The tiny voice inside my head wants to talk me out of any new endeavor for fear of failure. Danger! Danger! This is way too hard!…or so it likes to tell me….

Then, somewhere between a state of panic and my ego I find humility.

Per Wikipedia, humility is the quality of being modest and respectful. I think humility does not need to be humiliating. While I trusted my ability to figure out the mouse, I realized that I needed to take my time, remember my son’s instructions and give it my best shot. Ego has to take a back seat too because if I did not take time to remember my son’s instructions, I would barrel through the process, likely with no thought to what I was really doing.

I recently completed a large project at work that required my learning a whole new database management system. Since I’d only been with this company for two months before the download of hundreds of names into the new database, I thought, (panicky) how am I going to do this? Will I really be able to figure out this new system? How I did it was one name at a time. Instead of thinking about the whole project looming ahead of me, I concentrated on one letter of the alphabet and one name at a time. I took the tutorials the software company offered and asked questions when I couldn’t figure things out. The project took three months but I finished before my goal date. I felt really good about it when I was all done.

The older I get the more I realize it is truly ok to make mistakes in the learning process known as LIFE. Recognizing myself as a beautiful human being, strengths and weaknesses included, keeps my humility in the right place and my faith on the front burner.

It's nice to share. Thank you.

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