To Brag or Not to Brag

I had a professor when I was studying English and Communication six years ago who wasn't very good. He was young, around 37, which is very young as far as professors go and pretty unexperienced. But he did give me the best piece of advice I think anyone has ever given me.

He told us to always be humble. He said, you will learn a lot here and you will probably run in to friends and family who didn't have the opportunaty or didn't want to study for a higher education. Don't throw your -isms in their faces, don't talk about Darrida or Barthes and give references to what you yourself just recently learned. Don't ever fool yourself to think that you are better than them just because you now percieve the world in a different light. It is not necessarily a better light. So be humble.

It was a footnote to his class. He just said it in passing and as if he hadn't planned for it. Not like a rehearsed speech but more like something that he really needed to tell us, right that moment. And for someone who taught representations of litterature he was usually very stiff and textbook oriented but this once he changed completely which is probably why I remember it so well.

Since then I've learned that his advice can be applied to any given situation. I mean it's basically about not acting surperiour when you have it going for you and people who lack humility often have to pay for it later when tables are turned. Which of course is exaggerated in numerous American movies but it still applies to real life now and then.

Anyways I think it's a great advice whether it has to do with avoiding the reality of what goes around comes around or just for the sake of being a nice person.