Ralph didn’t take himself very seriously. He was always telling tales, mostly they were jokes about how awkward and confused he was.

Sometimes we describe people as being born with a certain talent or gifted with a certain ability. Humility isn’t a natural talent. Most of us need to practice it to get it right since it isn't something with which we are born. Ralph seemed to practiced humility everyday.

Humility can be defined as, "A quality by which a person, considering his own defects, has a humble opinion of himself and willingly submits himself." I’ve always been told not to be selfish; don’t try to impress others, be humble by thinking of others as better than yourself. Ralph reinforced that for me.

I asked him once why he made fun of himself so often. Ralph told me that if he didn’t humble himself then someone else might humble him first. That made a lot of sense to me at the time.

To Ralph, humility did not include a feeling of egotism, insignificance, or passiveness, but rather a sense of pride. Simply put, he was proud of himself and his personal goals. Actually, he possessed all the self confidence in the world.

Ralph couldn’t be or expect himself to always be the best. When he read about someone who was upping their own self worth he thought they were always seeing themselves at a level too high. “The world doesn’t revolve around any of us,” he told me. “We simply need to be satisfied with who we are, warts and all.”

I guess that humility does not mean we think less of ourselves, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own abilities. “Humility means freedom from thinking about ones self at all,” or so William Temple once said.

Ralph was unpretentious and modest. He didn’t think that he was better or more important than others. Ralph was not humiliating himself, which is something completely different. He was showing his great strength by admitting his weaknesses.

Benjamin Franklin said, “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”

I think Ralph was saying the same thing, but in his own way. He was discovering his good qualities without anyone’s else’s help. It’s another lesson well learned, and Ralph knew it very well.

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