Humble Pie

Phillip Brooks once said, ~The true way to be humble is not to stoop till your smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that shall show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.~ We've all been cut down to size, so to speak, when one tends to think too highly of himself or herself. It's one of the drawbacks of being human as our ego can get the better of us, which can be built up by our own doing or by other people. Each of us primarily takes pride in knowing or doing something that one excels in either mentally or physically. Working with kids, a person will learn that oftentimes you have to keep your own ego in check and ask yourself this question, what does humility mean to you?

In my line of work, humility means several different things such as cleaning up vomit after a child throws up coming from a field trip to a restaurant. Yet, it doesn't have to involve food as he or she is just plain sick. Knowing what the child is feeling at that point, it's essential to just put aside one's own reservations of gagging yourself and getting someone else to clean it up, which has been done by a former employee who I didn't see eye to eye with; but I digress. One just has to swallow your pride for the sake of the child who is scared, crying, and wants to go home asap. Here is a helpful tip to know: Dumping sand on vomit will deaden the smell, help in easier clean up, and most of all take away the gag reflex due to the smell.

Essentially, humility means accepting victory or taking defeat with honor and dignity. Over the past 8 summers the teens and counselors have had an epic battle of supremacy on the basketball court. As far as the record is concerned we have won 4 out of the 7 games that have been played so far and hopefully this year we can add another win. Yet, as summers have come and gone, the teens have progressively been getting better and better to the point where they are taking us to school and teaching us a few things. It wasn't too long ago that we let them have the ball to shoot, now they're fighting for the ball and shooting 3 pointers in our faces like it was nothing. One just has to accept, as aging counselors, we're losing our edge; BUT what we lose in speed and quickness we make up for in devious tactics.

Without question, what humility means to me is admitting to the kids when I am wrong which can be a catch 22 at times. Kids, as they do, will harp on the fact that we messed up and will not let you forget about it as they dangle it in front of your face like a worm for a hungry fish. However, 99% of the time kids are always in the wrong; but it's that 1% that they are right due to us not getting the full information needed to determine an accurate judgment call. I'm not the most rule conscious employee seeing that I've almost been fired 4 times for doing stupid things; but when it comes to the safety of "my kids" I will enforce them. When it comes to kids, whether you are right or wrong, you have to be willing to save face and be a better person, which makes for a better relationship with one's own kids someday.

Over the past 8 years, I've received countless compliments from parents about how I have influenced their child's life in some way, shape or form. Unfortunately, there are also parents who just see you as a babysitter so he, she, or both can go out and have a good time. Working in the asylum, I've learned you can't please every parent who walks through those doors and trust I've tried to. In some aspect you primarily have to have a balance of parents that love you and parents that think you are incompetent workers who like to write up kids for fun. It's just a matter of not letting it get to you because you won't have fun doing your job and right now I'm having a blast. In the end, sometimes you just have to eat a slice of humble pie every now and then to know that not all people think the work you are doing matters in the long run.