Humility holds us back when we don’t understand what it is and we overuse it.
We often think it means remembering that you’re not important. And at it’s worst we use it as a shame tactic on ourselves.
But humility means close to the ground. The original word literally translates to “earth.”
I believe it means realistically understanding what you are. That you’re on a speck of dust on a big planet that’s a speck of dust in the galaxy. You’re not a big deal. But some specks of dust are still bigger than other specks.
Humility isn’t about being the lowest you can be. It’s about understanding what you actually are. It’s not about thinking you’re worthless.
And we overuse it because we know that to get too full of ourselves is to risk death. If you think you can fly and you jump off of a building you’re going to run into problems. That’s not being humble enough.
The cultural narrative of “don’t get to cocky” makes us think that we want to be full of ourselves and we need to check ourselves.
But the reality is that we often let our fears keep us from getting cocky enough.
To be appropriately humble is to feel a healthy and realistic amout of pride in yourself.
And to believe in yourself realistically so that in the right moments of your life you can stand up and say the words “I can do this.”
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