Humility is not thinking less of yourself,
it’s thinking of yourself less.
C. S. Lewis
Which shouldn’t be mistaken with not thinking for yourself, mindless following, or allowing yourself to be walked over.
It’s taken time, but I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t be humble without self-belief. This idea germinated in my mind from a lesson I learnt in meditation.
First you are a child, naïve and unknowing completely dependent on the world. Then you grow and learn. Seeing yourself in the mirror, you recognize that those eyes staring back are yours and yours alone. Nobody else is quite like you. You learn ‘I am’. This ‘I’ discovers that the world is full of others and sets out on a quest to define itself by the arts of copy and compare. We collect possessions, buy clothes, adhere to labels. This continues until death. Unless of course, insecurities fall away, and you begin to see yourself as not quite so individual after all. In some wise moment the individual realizes that there is a bigger picture in which they are not quite so important as they previously felt.
Like the other 7 billion people in this world, I shy away from pain and gravitate towards comfort. We all want to belong.
humility
