Musings?

Musings?

Why are we humble? More specifically, why do we take such care to appear humble? Humility has value, undoubtedly and undeniably, and yet the extents we go to to convey our own belie the superficiality of such a trait. We live in a society that is afraid of accepting it’s own strengths, recognizing it’s own gifts, or even accepting the compliments it receives, for fear of putting someone else down by comparison. Recognizing the relative nature of all things, we see that if we are truly great we inevitably highlight the lack of greatness in that area of our audience, whomever that may be. Since we did something that they did not we are better, and unfortunately, the other side of that coin is they are not as good as we are, at least in this one area. And so, we refuse compliments and devalue our own victories to maintain this superficial veneer of modesty.
I find myself wondering; “Should I really make light of my accomplishments to sustain the egos of my peers? Is it better to revel in the glory of my achievements, and truly enjoy that which I’ve earned, or maintain the appearance of humility through self-diminishment?” In a sense, since I’m all too often confronted by a laundry list of character defects, is there anything truly immoral with celebrating the things I have done well at?
One would think that true humility (in its only personally useful form) would act as a stimulus, eventually and inevitably leading to change. Useful humility would convey the holes in a person’s character, encouraging them to supplement these areas and, if heeded, would eventually remove or at least mediate these flaws that we inevitably find in the imperfection that is humanity. I find that although I’m humble in many areas, I see no need to work harder in these places. In many ways, my humility in these areas seems to personally justify my lack of effort. In a sense, my psyche says to itself “this isn’t what I intend to be good at, so I don’t have to be good...