Think like a Viking: Part fifty five

This week's Viking quote

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Pride and wrong often end badly.

_{- Viga Glum's Saga -}

As very young children we begin life with a relatively clean slate; we don't know what we don't know, we are all rather innocent, as such. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where that endured? Hmm, I'm not sure if it would or not to be honest, and it's probably not possible anyway.

What I know for sure is that with time and experience we change, develop skills and attributes, habits, attitudes, opinions and agendas. Much of that that forms as children through the influences of those around us, television and movies, video games and in other ways. We, over time, become the person we are, for better or worse, and we keep changing.

There's many attributes and personality traits a human can acquire with some being incredibly valuable. There's things that define us as good or bad people, attractive or repellant, happy or sad and so on.

Humility is one such trait and, in my estimation, is a valuable personality trait to posses.

Pride is the opposite of humility and it could be argued that there's other similar antonyms to humility as well, but lets run with pride today. Just a word on pride...it can be a good thing, say, pride in one's work or appearance. But when it emerges in a person having an excessively high opinion of themselves, the feeling of being better than others, and lording that feeling over other people, then it's not a very positive trait; it's quite repellant in my opinion.

This week I saw just such a thing occur hence my selection of this Viking quote today.

I'll not go into the situation but it left me feeling very disappointed in a person I thought well of and caused me to reevaluate my opinion of them, my relationship also. It was rather sad to be honest as the individual had a chance to show some humility, or at least not present as any better that others or treat others with contempt due to the feeling of being better and would have gained such a positive result but, unfortunately, the person allowed pride to win-over and the situation didn't go so well.

It left me thinking about the benefits of presenting oneself in that prideful, arrogant way. It's called hubris - displaying excessive pride or self-confidence. For the record, I could think of no benefits, but many negatives.

Doing wrong and presenting oneself with hubris...it works for some, or so they believe I suppose. But does it ultimately bring advantageous results? Is it better to show some humility and to be well-intentioned rather than ill-intentioned? I think so. I believe a person presenting and acting in that way, displaying a little humility and kindness, will gain much more from life, and have a happier one.

We're not born as prideful or hubris-loaded creatures, we learn that. I know a few who are that way inclined and I drift away from them, or hold them at a distance. I also know a few who have managed to see what they are doing to themselves and others and, just as we can learn to be a certain way, *we can learn not to be a certain way.

There are many humble and kind people in this world and I think they might be much happier than the others I mention above. I think people gravitate to them, that what they do makes a positive difference to others, and themselves, and that their lives are a lot more fulfilling.

That's it for this week, a thousand year-old Viking quote about the merits of showing humility, of doing good things over doing the wrong things. Please feel free to disagree with my interpretation and add your own in the comments below if you like.

Skol.

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