Advice to a Young Person

Advice to accompany the famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow…

The Wreck of the Hesperus is a poem about hubris. Hubris is over-confidence. Hubris is arrogance. Hubris is foolish pride. It’s good to take pride in a job well done, like a successful performance, a good test score, or improving your ability in some way. We should all take a little pride in accomplishing something worthwhile. But having so much pride that you can’t see your own faults, or you can’t see the good in others, is just plain foolish – and wrong. There’s an old saying: Pride goes before a fall. This means that hubris usually leads to failure. Hubris is believing you are so good at what you do that nothing bad could ever happen to you. It’s believing you are better than everybody else, or you know more than everybody else, or the rules somehow don’t apply to you. Hubris is feeling that you are more important than others and everybody should do what you say, even when you’re wrong, or even when others might know better. Hubris can lead to disaster, not only for those who act on it, but also for those they love the most in all the world, as the poem suggests.

Only one thing can stop hubris: Humility. Humility means being realistic about what you know and how good you are at doing things. It’s admitting you could be wrong. It’s being aware that other people could know more than you. It’s being smart enough to know that you can be good at some things but not-so-good at others. It’s being wise enough to understand that no matter how much you can do, or how long you have been doing it, there is probably someone else who can do it just as well, or even better. Humility means being honest enough to admit that even though you are very good at something, you can still make mistakes, and you can still fail. Humility can make us better people. Hubris can’t. A humble person asks for help and listens to others. A person without humility thinks they know it all and refuses to listen or take advice, no matter how good the advice may be. A humble person learns from their mistakes and doesn’t let their successes make them conceited or self-important. Hubris teaches people to do the opposite, to take all the credit for successes and blame all their mistakes on someone else. Be humble. Be honest. Be realistic. You are the captain of your life. Don’t let hubris wreck your ship!