Lowering Yourself Is Not Humility

The convincing illusion of being humble

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“Be Humble.”

It’s a saying that has endured for generations. Countless stories of success throughout history have taught us the importance of humility. We have learned that humility is essential for us to walk the path towards success.

Humility is hard, though. It requires us to lower our defences, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. It demands us to face our weaknesses and admit the harsh truth — that we know nothing at all.

Being humble also means lowering oneself in front of people. It’s the essence of respect, the heart of serving correctly. It involves bending down before others, reducing one’s values, and seeing others’ perspectives.

We often associate humility with pride — that humility is the opposite of pride. One involves lowering the self, and the other consists of lifting the self up. To some, humility is avoiding pride, reducing the self as much as possible, and making sure the self is never better.

When we lower ourselves as much as possible, we see everything around us as better, as if we are always behind everything. We lose confidence in ourselves and slowly diminish our values, establishing ourselves as “rock bottom.”

This, we all know, is not humility. It’s an illusion that we often mix up with humility. Yet we all know that being humble does not mean having low self-esteem.

So, what is humility? How can we be truly humble?

Humility is knowing the self, not lowering it

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Being humble is about improving the self, not lowering it. Knowing the self is the first step towards improving the self.

Humility does not mean discarding our valuable qualities, diminishing our strengths, or lowering our values. Improving is not giving up on our capabilities but strengthening those that require improvement.

Knowing one’s weaknesses is the first step towards strengthening one’s self. It’s about recognizing what we lack and filling the gaps along the way to completeness.

Being humble also means knowing one’s strengths. Improving involves recognizing the process along the way and reflecting on what we have gained throughout the journey. Knowing one’s strengths provides insight into one’s weaknesses and encourages one to ameliorate them.

Knowing ourselves gives us insight into what to work on within ourselves. When we recognize our strengths and weaknesses, we have a direction toward success and completeness of the self.

When we are humble, we know and recognize ourselves. We recognize our strengths and celebrate them; we acknowledge our weaknesses and improve accordingly.

Humility is lifting others up, not lowering the self

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We’re all trying to be better, not worse.

Humility leads to improvement, while lowering ourselves leads to failure — it

makes us vulnerable and makes us compare ourselves to others. Comparing ourselves to be lower than others magnifies our weaknesses in front of others, discouraging us from pushing through challenges ahead.

A simple change in perspective allows us to be genuinely humble. When we lift up others, we recognize our differences — how we are strong in our own aspects and how we lack on our respective sides.

It is important to lift others up to ourselves without seeing ourselves as superior. It’s about recognizing the strengths of others and learning from them while recognizing our own strengths.

When we lift up our surroundings, we create a constructive environment, an atmosphere that encourages us to aim high and keep pushing through no matter what the circumstances are. That is what humility ought to be — driving us towards a better version of the self.

Ultimately, humility is not just about recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of oneself — obviously not about lowering oneself. It’s about recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of all things around you, celebrating them, and learning from them accordingly. It’s about pushing through difficult times and looking for a brighter future.

Humility is respect

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Being humble means recognizing different perspectives, seeing truth through various lenses, and respecting their perspectives — even if it means seeing oneself as higher than others.

It’s ironic that being humble sometimes means seeing ourselves as superior, but often, it is only through seeing ourselves to be better than others that we can find sincere humility. Ultimately, being humble is about accepting who we are; if we are better, we ought to respect that.

On the contrary, denying that we’re better is not accepting the truth and not respecting different perspectives. If we can’t even take the truth and respect different perspectives, aren’t we holding our opinions as superior? Are we even humble if we ignore how others think?

Sometimes, we end up in this “humility contest,” where we fight for “humility.” Ironically, most of us forget that the way to win is to surrender — recognizing and respecting what they want.

For example, when it comes to serving and contributing to the community, few of us offer to serve by being served. We often fight for the privilege to serve because it seems humble for us to serve others. Still, most of us forget that we can serve those serving by being served.

Being humble means respecting others and playing a role that benefits everyone.

Moreover, humility means respecting the truth, understanding that others might see us as higher, and accepting that truth because we respect their perspective.

To be wholly humble, we must understand the true nature of humility — it’s about respect.

Ultimately, humility leads to pride

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Yes, you heard it right. The final outcome of humility is pride.

The truth is, there is a difference between pride and ego — one comes from respect and evidence, and the other from stubbornness and ignorance.

It’s only through humility that we can see our honour. We can finally see the truth through another perspective and recognize our values through somebody else’s lenses. Humility gives us a solid foundation to build our lives and allows us to celebrate our strengths.

Ultimately, pride should come from objective truth, not ignorance. And humility allows us to recognize reality, celebrate our strengths, and be proud of ourselves.

Pride is not the opposite of humility but the result of it. When we are humble, we let go of our own perspective on reality and see everything objectively — both ourselves and others. We can know ourselves and the world through humility, respect others, recognize the truth, and celebrate our strengths and weaknesses.

Ignorance and stubbornness, however, are the opposite of humility. We see our beliefs, whether superior or rock bottom, as supreme and unchangeable. This blinds us to the truth, deceives us about our strengths and weaknesses, and discourages us from changing. Without change, we can’t improve, nor can we do anything to improve.

So, what is humility? It’s knowing the self, recognizing the self, improving the self, and ultimately celebrating the self.

“Be humble, and be proud.”