Narcisicism, Humility, and the Reality Gap

So I was reading this article off of MSNBC that me mum sent to me today and I started wondering about this. Any and all input is must welcome and encouraged....

The basic premise of the article was a book or study I cant remember which now reporting that 35 and unders were raised to be entirely too narcisistic as children. Due to the Self-esteem craze of the '90s and now the '00s, the report showed that people grew up obsessed with their own greatness. Now I entirely agree with this. I worked through a little of that with my councelor, and I would venture to say my parents were at least remotely more realistic with me than some of my college prep school friends. That said, Lee and Dennis know how to make a girl feel good about herself, and they tell me they're proud of me, and it's ok with me if they dont stop.
However, I began to wonder if my personal battle with humility might not be tied up in this. Now im not talking about self-deprecating humility, get that off the table before we even start this discussion. I'm talking about my, and probably many of our, inability to admit when we've done a good thing or a good job. We feel like the only way we can be humble is to pretend we're worthless. This in turn is incompatible with the notion of Christ's humility as our Christian tradition would teach us. (PS. this is dealing with religious issues... you're more than welcome to read on if you hold different beliefs, but im not sure how this ties into secular morality yet as that is not the primary tradition I am familiar with. I will try to think on it and include that into a later post. All ideas are welcome from this field as well!). Back to Christianty for the present. Christ's humility dictates utter honesty and reality about ourselves, the world, and our God. Christ, who 'humbled himself, even to death on a cross' (phillipeans), also reported quite accurately that He was/is the Son of God Most High. Now that's a heck of a reality.
I venture to say we have trouble balancing our battle against narcicism with our battle of self rejection as these are the two extreems we are most familiar with as children. Our parents and teachers tell us how special we are, and our enemies spiritual and physical tell us we are worthless garbage deserving nothing. I venture to say this is another where we must learn to live in the middle... not believing we are God Most High and therefore always right and perfect, but also rejecting the false belief that we are worthless swine either.
But how do we do this? It feels so horribly yet deliciously narcissistic to say, "Why yes I do have wonderfully good grades and I worked hard at them too." Yet, the alternative is to deny this, and simultaneously lie. Please... do weigh in on this issue.

much love, anna