“Humility is the foundation of all other virtues. Hence in the soul in which this virtue does not exist, there can be no other virtue except in mere appearance.”
St. Augustine, Roman bishop
I think that basically sums up most people’s views on the matter, but it doesn’t exactly answer the question.
Even those of us who don’t go to church every week are probably familiar with the biblical wisdom:
“For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
Luke 14:11
“Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble.”
James 4:6
(I’m partial to the King James version) And yeah, that’s great too, but what does it actually, practically mean to be more humble?
I grew up under the impression that humility was synonymous with self-deprecation. And when I looked up “humble” on dictionary.com, I had to laugh. “Humble: Having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, or subservience.” And then, “Humility: Modest in the estimation of one’s own value.”
See? This is why I always thought being humble sucked. But humility doesn’t suck. Humility is the ability or willingness to learn, it is confidence, and it is accepting that you’re not the center of the universe.
“Early in life, I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.”
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect
I bring this quote up today because people seem to think that pride and humility are mutually exclusive when, as I said in my video on balance, everyone is at least a little of both.
I personally could never be one and not the other. If I ever am, I certainly won’t know it because recognizing your pride is a sign of humility, just like claiming humility is a sign of pride.
Now that we’ve heard from St. Augustine, the Bible and Frank Lloyd Wright, let’s continue with the words of the great philosopher Charlie Sheen:
“Uncertainty is a sign of humility, and humility is just the willingness or the ability to learn.”
Charlie Sheen, crazy person
In spite of being Charlie Sheen, he is on to something.
Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth College, former department chair at Harvard Medical School and recently retired president of the World Bank, had this to say:
“No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you could be better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and try to get better, because it’s your job to help everybody else get better.”
Jim Yong Kim, M.D., Ph.D.
One of my biggest challenges with being more humble is I hate being wrong in public. In my own head, I can recognize that I make mistakes and I can backtrack when I need to, but if someone else notices my mistakes, even if they’re very kind about it, I can’t help but get very defensive. And there’s only one word for that: pride.
Humility is the willingness or the ability to learn, and by extension humility is the willingness to be wrong even in public.
It’s a common misconception that pride leads inexorably to confidence. Confidence is when you assume that you’re going to make the right decisions in a given situation. And it’s true, if your pride tells you you can’t possibly be wrong, it’s really easy to be confident. But if you’re just humble enough to understand that you’re not always going to be right, suddenly that same pride makes it impossible to be confident.
Contrary to popular belief, to be humble is to be confident, to go into situations saying, “I think I’m right, and that’s the best I can do.” The humble person understands that the more you act with confidence, the more opportunities you get to learn. And the more you learn, the better decisions you can make and the better decisions you can make, the better an idea it is to be confident. It’s an upward spiral.
The humble person will, of course, whenever possible, seek advice and education from those more experienced and knowledgeable than them. Like Confucius said:
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First by reflection, which is noblest. Second by imitation, which is easiest. And third by experience, which is bitterest.”
Confucius
One of my earliest lessons in what it really means to be humble was when my mom taught me how to take a compliment. Obviously, you’re not supposed to go, “I already know I’m awesome, shut up.” But I had a habit as a child of responding to compliments by saying, “Stop saying nice things to me. It’s not true, I’m not that great.” Even when I knew I was. My mom explained, “The correct way to handle a compliment is to say ‘thank you’ and move on.”
I think that ties in with my personal favorite quote on humility:
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.”
Rick Warren, pastor
Are you getting the same thing from that I am?
It’s actually thoroughly prideful to go around deprecating yourself all the time. I mean, even if you think you suck, how self-centered do you have to be to go around focusing on how much you suck all the time?
Humility is just considering a universe you’re not the center of. Helping someone, thinking before you speak, changing your behavior in some tiny way for no other reason than that it benefits someone else.
Pride is the habit of putting ourselves in the way of seeing things as they really are. We strive for humility because it is the closest thing we can come to truly understanding ourselves and the world around us.
In accordance with the rules of proper oration, I shall now repeat the important stuff one more time.
- Pride and humility go together. There’s rarely one without the other.
- Humility is the willingness to learn, and by extension, it is the willingness to be wrong in public.
- Humility is believing you’re right but accepting the fact that sometimes you’re going to be wrong.
- Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.
One final quote to wrap things up:
“True humility is intelligent self-respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves.”
Ralph Sockman, pastor
