Tuesday, May 03, 2005
humility

I was reading this article about Mr. Kakiuchi (the president of the train company of the Amagasaki accident) taking the time to personally visit the homes and apologize to the families of the victims. My eyes were drawn to this part:

"You're a killer! I lost my husband in one minute!" screamed one woman as a shaken Kakiuchi bowed deeply. In another home, a woman, who lost her son, yelled at him: "You're carrying people, not cargo. Why wasn't safety your top priority?"

I was impressed with the humility that it must have taken to actually do what he's doing - to go face to face and say sorry to someone whose loved one has died as a result of your own (indirect) responsibility. It takes a sort of quiet courage to do what he did. Though most foreigners would characterize Japanese culture as being "overly apologetic", it's pretty rare that leaders in high positions make personal apologies in such a manner. (*cough* Japanese government & WWII *cough*)

Humility is taking responsibility.

In my own life, the person I sometimes struggle to apologize to the most is the one who stares back at me in the mirror. Some people I know say I have humility, but I know that I also have a lot of pride. The irony of my own humility is that no matter how easy it is for me to forgive others, there are still some things I can't forgive myself.

I need to pray about that more.

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Comments:
i admire what he did. couldn't be easy. i'd like to see more of that over here. just a pinch. a tiny smidgeon.

yeah right. maybe in my dreams.

f
 
yeah, imagine if the ex-CEOs from Enron or WorldCom actually went door-to-door and said sorry to all the people whose retirement funds went *poof*... or if Donald Rumsfeld actually went to the homes of every family who lost someone in Iraq.

not likely to happen, but it'd be nice if it did...
 
nice post. every part of it.
 
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in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

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