Humility: The Role of UP
Only in the past few months did I realize how much I really missed UP. I can't really point to anything that triggered my looking back through time. I always knew that my brief stay at the University of the Philippines was a huge factor in molding me into the person I am today. But then, everything that happens to us, big or small, must be factored in to the equation of our person. That said, I still think that UP was a term in the equation all on its own.
As I was reading through my psychiatry textbook (see previous posts), I was little by little able to label some characteristics I knew I possessed. For instance, I now know that I have some obsessive-compulsive traits. Also, I found out that, although I tried not to show people or to talk about it (at least I didn't think it showed), I was a bit of a narcissist. Let me explain.
In high school, I refused to accept that the other people in my class were smarter. No way. They might have had complete notebooks and stunning projects or had higher PD grades. But they weren't smarter. God, in His wisdom, allowed me to meet in UP people who I actually accepted and acknowledged to be better and smarter than I was. As I entered the hallowed halls of the University I would come to regard as my real academic home, I realized I was but a speck amidst the great minds in that place.
In the succeeding years, God continued to work in my heart. He was humbling me. I wanted to get in to UP College of Medicine. What then happened was a long and stressful process of med school applications that finally landed me a spot in the school that was last on my list of 3 schools -- UST. And I was in the wait-list. The process was painful to the ego. But looking back, I have no regrets. I know that He is still at work because the narcissism is still there, rearing its ugly head at times. When I look back and think of UP, I remember God's molding hand and I pause to thank Him because He wants me to be better, humbler, greater than the man I am today.
As I was reading through my psychiatry textbook (see previous posts), I was little by little able to label some characteristics I knew I possessed. For instance, I now know that I have some obsessive-compulsive traits. Also, I found out that, although I tried not to show people or to talk about it (at least I didn't think it showed), I was a bit of a narcissist. Let me explain.
In high school, I refused to accept that the other people in my class were smarter. No way. They might have had complete notebooks and stunning projects or had higher PD grades. But they weren't smarter. God, in His wisdom, allowed me to meet in UP people who I actually accepted and acknowledged to be better and smarter than I was. As I entered the hallowed halls of the University I would come to regard as my real academic home, I realized I was but a speck amidst the great minds in that place.
In the succeeding years, God continued to work in my heart. He was humbling me. I wanted to get in to UP College of Medicine. What then happened was a long and stressful process of med school applications that finally landed me a spot in the school that was last on my list of 3 schools -- UST. And I was in the wait-list. The process was painful to the ego. But looking back, I have no regrets. I know that He is still at work because the narcissism is still there, rearing its ugly head at times. When I look back and think of UP, I remember God's molding hand and I pause to thank Him because He wants me to be better, humbler, greater than the man I am today.
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