Sometimes we become very sure of ourselves, believing that we have in our lives achieved some greatness, and even that we are superior to others. We may believe that such an opinion - that we are great or superior - is justified, qualified by certain deeds that we have performed or certain virtues that we have displayed. But are we ever truly worthy of holding such an opinion?
I question this because it has crossed my mind that our actions and behaviour are never, in the strictest sense, controlled by us. The decisions we make to execute particular actions - for example, to read a book this evening - are ultimately consequences of circumstances. Circumstances such as our upbringing, birth and particular people or events which appear in our lives, all play a role in affecting our every action and thought. While it may seem to us that we have total control over what we think and what we will, the idea that this feeling is merely an illusion can sound very compelling, though maybe at first counter-intuitive. Just think: every thought that you have ever thought must have been a consequence of an array of factors (e.g. events or individuals which inspired you to develop ideas, people who taught you language, your birth which gave you your capacity to think and develop ideas, etc.), none of which you can strictly say is your very own (even this very precise thought). Thus, it would always be foolish to genuinely believe that we are all entirely worthy of what we have thought, created or did. This is not to say that acting arrogantly or acting as if you are very proud of yourself does not necessarily have any practical social benefits - at the same time I am not suggesting that there is any - but I am merely pointing out that believing that you yourself are a self-made man, or that you deserve all the glory for any of your actions, is foolish.
None of our achievements are truly ever our very own - none of our achievements would have existed without the facilities (e.g. our mind) Nature has endowed us with, and without the very particular circumstances that Nature has brought about. This Nature of which I speak of - I am referring to the natural order of things, which some refer to as God. I refrain from referring It to as God for fear of its misleading connotations.
Ultimately, I hope this demonstrates how being humble and valuing humility as a virtue is wiser than being arrogant and too sure of oneself.
