Humility Is Not For The Meek

Jul 30, 2009 by winjaw

Being laid up after surgery gives one time to reflect. It also makes one a little antsy about not being able to do much.

I’ve spent some of my time re-reading notes I’ve taken from various books I’ve read. And I just realized I used “I’ve” three times in that last sentence. Blame it on the painkillers.

For some reason, I took a lot of notes about “humble” and “humility.”

One dictionary defined humility as “act or state of being humble.” Okay, that doesn’t help much. That same dictionary defined humble as “not proud or arrogant … modest.” Said dictionary also added “having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority.”

Having to give your five-year-old the pepper mill so he can put some pepper on your baked potato definitely fits that latter definition.

But let’s focus on the first definition. Too often in this world we see those as humble as being weak, not tough enough and easy to walk over.

Here’s a few notes I took, in some cases I can cite the author, in others I didn’t write it down, so sorry for lack of attribution.

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less,” – Rick Warren.

“When humility is absent, pride is usually in control.”

“The humble value what others can teach them.”

“The more humble you are, the more wise you become.”

Based on the above, it seems humble doesn’t really equate to being “weak,” but rather being wise.