For those who are not familiar with the meaning of “humility”, the Oxford Dictionary describes being humble as “having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance.” Thus, humility represents a “humble view of one’s importance.” This characteristic used to be a desired or appreciated one in Western cultures. Not any more! Today, world leaders, sports and entertainment celebrities, rich people, etc. are anything but humble about themselves or their perceived achievements. This is not to say that one should not be proud about one’s achievements, but there is a limit to how much one should brag about them.
Today more than ever, social media unfortunately puts on display a ton of bombastic, narcisstic and macho personalities. We tweet out how great we are and how much we should be admired and replicated. While men tend to be pompous the most, many women in order to get ahead in their profession appear to be under the impression that they have to be just as macho if not more so than men. Being humble is not seen as a strength but as a weakness. I’m sure that all of us can think of persons who display these traits. Indeed, most Western cultures now openly promote these characteristics, often leading to mind-boggling confrontations among such people. The “mine is bigger than yours” mentality.
Why then is our lack of humility a bad thing? For one thing, believing that we are always right can lead us to ignoring other contrary facts or opposing view points. We become selective about what we accept as facts and only select those facts which support our positions — also known a “confirmation bias”. Unfortunately, this can lead to bad or misguided decision-making. The defence of our biases can also lead to a lack of “civility”. “Humility” and “civility” go hand in hand.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s time that we bring back an admiration for those displaying humility. One should never be afraid to declare that one is or was wrong and be stigmatized by society as showing weakness. Instead, as a society we should be promoting humility as a good quality to be encouraged and praised. In every stage of our lives, a lot of people have contributed to forming who we are in beneficial ways. One should never forget to recognize these past contributions and those of the people around us today. This is what humility is all about. Our role models in the public eye need to lead the “humility” way for the sake of future generations.
FROLITICKS 