Humility.

After reading the Philosophy Toolkit, the topic of Intellectual Virtues made me think. Number five is titled "Intellectual Humility" and states that "one must have preparedness to acknowledge one's ignorance or error and proceed with inquiry." However, it is not by any means easy for a human being to admit his or her own faults. It seems as though it is in our human nature to always be right. We do not like to acknowledge our mistakes. No human being is perfect so why is humility so hard to come by? The definition of humility is the "quality or condition of being humble, modest, and respectful of others." On the contrary, we live our lives everyday witnessing arogence, disrepct and an abundance of pride. It seems as though the majority of human beings do not understand the concept of humility. There is a difference between confidence and cockiness.

We learn from our mistakes, we learn from other people, so why must we disrespect those we don't know? Why do our egos get in the way of reaching our full potential and learning from others? We need to admit we are wrong when indeed we are wrong. We don't know everything and anything can change within a blink of an eye. We aren't always right and we are rarely modest of what we are right about. The only way to learn is to acknowledge our mistakes and move forward but, in general, we can never believe other people on concepts we think we know everything about. If we dwell on what we think we know, we can never advance.

My question to you is: In general, why are humans so reluctant to admit to our mistakes when we know only good can come out of it?