Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Hard to Balance

Today is Be Humble Day. It is a day to keep away from bragging about ourselves or trying to make ourselves sound better than we are. Being humble, as I have recently found, is not how I once thought of it. I once thought that to be humble, you almost have to deny your own talents. If someone asked if I was good at something, in a vain attempt to be humble, I would say "No" even if I was actually gifted in that area. That's not being humble. That's just lying. In fact sometimes, I would use that to get out of work, and if they saw me doing well at the task later, I would say "Well, I was just trying to be humble". No, being humble isn't about that at all. That's being humble for the sake of trying to get people to see how humble you are, which doesn't fit into the logic of what being humble is.

Being humble is knowing your talents, and neither overselling or underselling yourself on them. You shouldn't be out to make yourself look like you are better than what you might really be (you'll get caught pretty fast), and you shouldn't have the false humility of saying "Oh, no I'm no good at that" when you are actually quite decent. It's a very delicate balance, but one of the most rewarding virtues there is, in my opinion. It helps you become honest with both yourself and others, which can really take a lot of stress away from your day-to-day.

Obviously, no one can become perfectly humble in just one day. Today is just a reminder of something we should be working on daily. Pay extra attention to what you say when someone approaches you asking about what you can do or have done, and try to remain humble. It's hard to do, for me especially, because I love telling stories. Sometimes I like to... spice up my life stories to make them more entertaining for the listener. So that's something for me to work on. Try to see if you can find some way to become a little more humble, and work at it daily. And have a great day!

Thanks for reading!
~Kyle