I wasn’t sure what to make the sermon on until the other day. I was walking my mom to the store, when I began thinking about how much pride I had in being able to drive and in the car I have. To give an understanding, my car is a 1990 mustang 5.0, I’ve installed a custom fiberglass body kit(air dam, rear valance, and side skirts) a custom fiberglass scoop hood, custom eurotail taillights, and projector beam headlights, it also has a custom sound system, viper alarm, racing transmission, and dual flowmaster exhaust. In short I spent a lot of time, money, and sweat equity on it, however due to financial issues I don’t have a license and therefore can’t drive it. When I was much younger I used to mock people that couldn’t drive no matter what the reason was. I had too much pride.
Hubris avoids no one, I’ve since learned a great deal of humility. It was during the walk with my mom that I truly realized just how much humility I’ve gained.
Pride: a sense of personal dignity, a feeling of pleasure because of something achieved, done, or owned.
Proud: showing or having a feeling that one is better than the others; having a feeling of satisfaction; having proper self esteem or self respect.
Humble: marked by meekness or modesty; unpretentious; lowly.
Humility: a feeling of reduced dignity or pride to a lower position.
These are words we hear all the time, but do we fully understand them? Do we understand how they apply to people, specifically jedi? These are questions we need to ask ourselves everyday if we want to achieve true balance.
We can have pride(personal dignity) but we should exercise control when we achieve something so we do not give in to the arrogant side of pride. Pride can be the gateway to jealousy and greed.
We can have proper self esteem and self respect, but we should not place too much emotional energy into it or we become vain and shallow.
We can be humble(modest/unpretentious) but we should not feel lowly as though we’re less then everyone else.
Be proud of who you are, never set yourself lower in stature then others but also never raise yourself above others, we are all equal despite our many differences. Different does not mean less than or greater than it just means different.
