From President Dallin H. Oaks and his book “Life’s Lessons Learned”
I have had to learn lessons about humility: first, what it is, and second, how to seek it and keep it.
Humility is essentially a consciousness of one’s personal inadequacies. It’s therefore a catalyst for learning. It is the opposite of pride. My favorite illustration of this truth is Benjamin Franklin’s journal description of his attempt to overcome his natural tendency toward pride by acquiring the virtue of humility. After considerable efforts he concluded that “there is perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.” For, he continued, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility”1
If we are meek and humble enough to receive correction and counsel, we can be guided to put our strengths into perspective and use them for the benefit of others rather than the prideful aggrandizement of self. “Be thou humble”, the Lord has said, “and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers” (Doctrine and Covenants 112:10)
As for the practice of humility as the natural offset to pride, I have had different challenges at different times of my life.
When I was teenager, I saw things around me mostly in terms of what they meant to me personally. I thought it was all about me, to use an apt description I learned later. I viewed school events, athletics and other activities and family and Church responsibilities mostly in terms of what they meant to me personally. I desired to be complimented. As I have read things I wrote about at that time—now more than sixty years ago—I realize that I had a selfish view about myself in the world and very little humility.
Humility can be learned, and marriage and children are great teachers. Church callings are too. As a young adult, I began to see others around me in terms of what I could give rather than what I could get. Selfishness receded and humility took root.
As a student and as a university teacher, I experienced the fact that the process of education—especially at the college and graduate level—impresses one with all one does not know, and that encourages humility. But the acquisition of knowledge and its certification (degrees and so on) bring recognition and feelings of self-sufficiency that soon work against humility by which they were acquired. A powerful description describes the result:
“When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not” (2 Nephi 9:28). ~~~Dallin H. Oaks, Prophet, Seer, Revelator and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . From his book “Life’s Lessons Learned”
