November 16, 2017 – Humility & self-esteem

        I’ve touched on this subject before in this blog and the phrase “humility” has always been a tripping stone for me. What is it?  What isn’t it? I’ve given examples where I was accused of not being humble and my poor reaction to it.

        This last week in The Daily Courier newspaper, a local column writer, Terry Ledford, wrote an article entitled:  Can humility improve self-esteem? You can find him at www.Terryledford.com for other items of interest.

       

        He makes the claim:

        “It seems to be a bit confusing to say that you can improve your self-esteem by practicing humility . . .”

        He opens the article with a C. S. Lewis quote:

        True Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

        Okay, he has my full attention.

        Then he discusses Dr. Dickerson’s book, Humilitas. [Note to self, get that book and read it.]

        Now the fog is lifting for me.  Ledford illuminates the differences between humility and bragging and self-elevation of today.

        Next Ledford makes a compelling statement, “true humility is a deliberate choice”.

        Ledford also elaborates on one being put-down or humiliated.   I had always wrongly confused humiliation with humility somehow.

        Then he tells us, “One needs to have a healthy self-esteem to be able to voluntarily humble him or herself.”  That was the zinger for me as I had been told years ago I have a healthy self-esteem by a woman psychologist.  In fact, she was fascinated by how much self-esteem I had because I was a size 24 or 26 at the time.  Often women of that size have serious issues with self-esteem and she asked dozens of questions about my parents.  She concluded, they’d done a fine job raising me – she just couldn’t pin point what they exactly had done, but they’d found the right parenting method in order that I had great self-esteem in my early 40s in the middle of looking for employment as I was in a dead-end job and not a perfect dress size.  She concluded that I was at that moment miserable, but I had great self-esteem – something I shouldn’t take for granted.

        I often think of her conclusion when I am having an exceptionally off or ‘bad day’.  It is sort of my “bounce back” escape valve. Sort of a mental voice that chimes in and says, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps – you know you can do better than this – you are not a victim.”

        However, back to humility and self-esteem; Ledford says it so succinctly I must quote him verbatim:

“When you practice deliberate humility, you recognize that you have value, ability or knowledge, but you refrain from flaunting it.  You listen earnestly to the other individual, recognizing that you can learn from everyone.  You treat the other person with honor, respect and kindness.

“I believe that you walk away from such interactions feeling better about yourself, and that your self-esteem grows.  It’s not that you walk away proud of your actions.  Rather, I believe you lose any sense of yourself, as you serve others.

        Okay, I’ll try to listen more and nix the flaunt so that I can put humility into action to feed my self-esteem. 

       

        In essence, losing some of your-self in a good way is humility.   I’ll be pondering on that while I locate a copy of Dr. Dickson’s book to go into this further.

        If I can crack the DNA of this “humility” thing – then I think I can next muster figuring out “diplomacy” the greatest attribute my Mom, who recently passed away, had. More on Mom’s diplomacy style in the near future.