Why Is Humility so Difficult to Achieve? by Dr. Donald DeMarco

Humility, on the one hand, should be the easiest of all the virtues to achieve.  After all, we did not create ourselves, and we owe a debt of gratitude that we can never pay to our parents and all those who have contributed to our life.  We are microscopic specks inhabiting a vast universe for a very brief period of time.  As the Russian existentialist, Nikolai Berdyaev writes, “humility is ontological.”  By that he means that if we take an honest look at our being, it tells us that we should be humble.

On the other hand, as a matter of fact, humility is the most difficult of all the virtues to acquire.  Why is there such disparity between realism and fantasy?  We are mortal, finite, defectible, and prone to extreme foolishness.  That is nothing to be proud of.  Yet pride takes hold of us and expresses itself in the three ugly daughters of ambition, boastfulness, and ostentation.  We look at our existence through rose-colored glasses.  We are truly odd creatures. …

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