Humility, Prayer, and Goodness

Dr. Bob at One Cosmos writes the following today: "There is a paradox in spiritual learning. The further you advance on the path, the more you realize how far you are from the goal. This has been the most humbling realization for me, the knowledge that I can never graduate and get my sheepskin from the 'U. of the Most Holy.'" A little later he writes

"Begin with humility -- pray for it -- empty yourself of pride, for this is the spiritual method at its core. Only then will there be space for the spirit to begin working within you. This is the first step, and the second, and the third, until the day you die, and beyond..."

Here is the link to One Cosmos: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/

One Cosmos then links to a related post by Dennis Prager, who expands on thirteen reasons why we have a hard time becoming better persons. Here are the thirteen reasons Prager expounds on in his post:
1. Most people don’t particularly want to be good.
2. Confusion about what it means to be good.
3. Goodness is not about intentions (It is not the thought that counts. It is the action.)
4. We don’t learn how to be good.
5. We think too highly of ourselves.
6. We think we will be taken advantage of.
7. Few personal models.
8. We don’t believe that there are rewards for being good.
9. We have to battle our nature.
10. I’m a victim.
11. Few people were raised to be good people.
12. In our formative years, the least impressive are rewarded.
13. Psychological blocks.
Here is wishing to Dennis Prager a wonderful Rosh Hashana. Thank you, Dennis, for sharing with us your thinking on this important subject, and for doing so in plain, easy-to-understand clear concepts.
You can read his whole post here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279055/why-it-so-hard-become-better-person-dennis-prager?page=1