Don’t Be Too Proud.

Most of us don't even realize when we are being to proud, and I am not innocent of this. If you can learn to spot this in yourself, you will be able to grow where others can’t.

I suppose I knew this in one way or another for a while, but I have only just now put decent words to it. It came to me just now as I was reading a middle school English language arts book. Yep. That is not a typo. I am currently reading a book meant for middle schoolers, and I am not ashamed to admit it.

You may or may not know that I write for the elegant literature contests from time to time. I believe I have six right now, and none of them have won anything. My purpose for writing them was twofold: get practice, and maybe win some money. I have also started regularly attending a local writing group. My purpose for this was more complex. For a couple years now, I have been listening to interviews with published authors and reading articles to learn about being an author and the publishing process. One of these authors recommended joining a local writing group. I cannot remember who recommended this, or exactly why, but I do remember their reasoning seemed sound at the time. "Coincidentally" (read my post about coincidences to learn why this is in parenthesis) my significant other happened to see a poster for a local writing group not long after. I made a few lame attempts to attend and then "got too busy". I went about 7 months this way until things calmed down a tad and I got serious about my writing again. I started going regularly, and let me tell you; if you are serious about writing, this is a good move to make. It gets you out of your comfort zone. You can't grow in your comfort zone. I met new people who felt similar to me about writing, in varying degrees. We all support and inspire each other, which means more than you might think. And, that should actually mean a lot coming from me since I very much prefer to work alone. I realized a long time ago though, that you do your best with when you have help from others. I never would have believed this when I was younger, but it is true. So a few weeks ago I pushed further out of my comfort zone and asked two of the other members to read one of my short stories and provide feedback. One of them provided me with good feedback. The other one opened my eyes.

You might know that I admire Christopher Paolini. In one of his YouTube videos he gave a bit of advice to writers. That advice was to keep learning the tools of your trade, which in this case is the English language. This has sat in the back of my mind for a while, apparently just waiting for the right moment to nudge me in the right direction. The second person from that writing group who provided me feedback made me realize how little I actually understood about grammar. Now, please know that I have a very good visceral understanding of the mechanics of English grammar. I did not however have anywhere near the technical level of understanding that this person did, and it showed me in black and white how little I knew. In his notes for me he was using words like “exposition” and “prepositional phrase.”I know I learned all this in school, but as the old saying goes, if you don't use it you'll lose it. I lost it. And that is when Mr. Paolini's advice came in for the kill. If I was going to take this writing thing seriously, I needed to learn more. So I ordered a book about English language arts meant for middle school kids. Guess what. It was the right decision. I have learned more about grammar in 20 pages of that book than years of writing things like this. I'm going to do my best not to forget this lesson, and to keep learning. Funny thing is, I already knew this. I told so many people the same thing when I taught them machining, "never stop learning, if you think you don't have more to learn then you will never get better. No matter how good you get there is always more to learn," and so on and so forth. I guess that until now I just didn't see writing in the same way that I saw machining...I do now though. Everything is like that, any field you choose.

So, back to the title. I have seen so many people in machining, writing, parenting, adulting, life, etc. who are too damn proud to admit simple truths to themselves. Too proud to admit when they are wrong, so instead they double down. Being wrong is okay! A moment when you are wrong has the most potential to be a learning moment. Too proud to admit they don't know. Again, not knowing is the first step toward knowing! Too proud to admit they hadn't thought of that, too proud to admit somebody else had a great idea. These are great opportunities to help build others up and learn at the same time! Those people you build up will learn to return the favor, monkey see monkey do style!

Be humble. When you are too proud you, accomplish nothing but holding yourself back.