Humility - Who Needs It?

Humility is often looked upon, not as a quality, but as a negative characteristic. What is the real meaning of humility? Why is it a quality we should desire and seek?

Some associate humility with words like spineless, spiritless, and consider it incompatible with a vibrant intellect and personality.

Although the true definition of humility is "without pride"; that definition simply isn't clear enough. The best way to get an accurate definition of humility is to consider its antonyms or opposites, which include prideful, narcissism, conceit and arrogance.

So, what is this thing called humility?

"It's the realization - not with pain, but with joy - that all virtues and abilities are not lodged in yourself; it's that sudden insight that every soul in this world can be your teacher no matter how low his light burns; it's that intake of breath when you stand before the ocean and realize how vast nature is." [Dunn]

"The job of humility is not to make us feel small, but to expand our capacity for appreciation, awe, delight; to stand silent before all that we do not know - and then to get on with the work of finding out." [Dunn]

Michael Drury relates this story. "My mother lives on a mountain, where in the summer the stars are as big as chrysanthemums and, to my city-trained eye, almost frightening close. One night some years ago as we stood under them, simply looking, I was moved by what I supposed was humility to say, 'Doesn't it make you feel insignificant?'

"No," she answered, "only grateful to be included in such a universe."

Seek humility, the highest virtue of them all - not to be frustrated by our limitations, but to be filled with a new appreciation and an enhanced sense of awe and love for all our blessings.

Humility - who needs it? We do. - We all do.

Edited by Connie Eccles, CEO of ComPortOne. Insights and quotes from Look at Your World
by Paul H. Dunn, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah.