It was rather a series of events that built up to the fall of my ego, but
I remember an exact turning point where I really began to reflect on
myself and see how annoying I was before. Just to give you an idea of
how arrogant I was back then, here’s the story of how I lost a
competition I thought I was destined to win. I was in eighth grade when
this happened. There was a week-long program where we had to march
quite a bit of distance, and the competition was basically a public
speaking competition on what we learned from if or what our
experiences are. I was nominated by my homeroom teacher to represent
my class in the competition. I’ve always been very confident about my
English speaking abilities, to a warped extent. I was sure that I was going
to win this, easy claps. I knew that other contestants were competent,
but I still let my ego got the best of me. I walked on the stage
under-prepared. I lost without a doubt. I was so arrogant that I was
blinded from my terrible performance, I thought I did great up until the
point the results came out. This incident made me question myself, am I
really the person I see myself as? Or was I flooded by the compliments
that came before. Multiple incidents, prior and later, proved the latter
point to be true.
After that day, I began to show some extent of restraint. I kept
reminding myself that I’m not the best at anything. There always might
be someone that’s better than you at some things. I learn in the Art Of
War to appear weak when you are strong, and appear strong when
you’re weak. This mindset helped me to become a humble man.