Humility

"Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are." - Laurence J. Peter

How do you act when somebody praises you? Are you able to maintain your balance and receive the praise with grace? Not seen many people who are able to do so with grace.Some people act as though they did not deserve your praise. Some care less about your praise. They are nonchalant. Some are embarrassed and make you feel guilty. Some immediately start thinking what may be your hidden agenda even if you do not have one.

"It is hard to be loved than to love." I believe same thing holds good for dealing with praise as well. We do not seem to know how to handle praise at all. It is not all our fault. Let's face it. Praise is hard to come by. We are reprimanded or scolded more than we are ever praised. So, we do not get to experience praise as much as we experience other forms of judgment. So, who can blame us if we are not good at something that we do not that often?

It is really a skill to deal with praise showered on us. We certainly want to be careful but should not be very paranoid that everybody who praises us has a hidden agenda. Agreed we have been back stabbed by people who have praised us to get something done from us or just to get some other form of reward. It hurts to realize later that people had some hidden agenda.

When we receive praise with humility it does not necessarily have be an embarrassment. It can be done gracefully as well. Most effective way is to look right into the eyes of the person praising you and say a solid 'Thank you.' Say a genuine 'Thank you' regardless of what you think the motive of the praiser is. Your genuineness only makes the person good if his or her praise is genuine or miserable if they had some other agenda. Let them decide how they want to feel.

See, basically, we do not depend on other people's judgment for our sense of security. Feeling good when someone praises and feeling down when someone else reprimands is not helpful at all. If we depend on others like that, we will be bobbing up and down like a buoy. Where is the sense of balance in living like that? Do not get me wrong. It is not easy. But, if we have to mature as people, we just can afford to let others control us. "No body can offend you or hurt your feelings without your permission." They can say anything they like but making yourself happy or miserable is all in your hands. You do not control the stimuli but you can surely control the response.

Praise or reprimand - let's take it. Both are better than being ignored. "Love me or hate me, I got you. Ignore me, I lost you."

"It is better to be looked over than overlooked."

Cheers!

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