The Discipline Found in Humility

Confidence, Cockiness, and Their Relation to Hubris

When you speak of humility, you will often find those who would argue that your issue stems from finding confidence disagreeable. But I would counter that confidence coexists with humility and allows one to continue improving both their skill and their moral character with an open mind and willing heart. Confidence is trust. It’s a quiet faith. Confidence is not cowed by a word like humility. Cockiness, however, is.

Cockiness and confidence have very distinct characteristics that rely heavily on whether or not a person is humble. Humility is shown through a low opinion of one’s self-importance. It is a distinct lack of arrogance and pride, a recognition of something greater than oneself — whatever that may look like. I think humility, like confidence, comes from a quiet knowing, from faith. In this world we live in — one that is finite, one that passes, one in which we are, no matter how you choose to see it, always in service to one another — humility is a trait that allows us to cooperate in the bigger picture. Humility allows us to see things as they are, rather than living in a bubble of our own importance.

You can place little value on self-importance and image and still be confident in your ability to do well that which you’ve chosen to do in your life. In fact, we are all called to do our best — whether that’s the best in the world or the best in your hometown. Your personal best in this life is what is required. I would say that being the best far exceeds material accolades — awards, how many famous people you’ve worked with, how much money you have, how many things you own. Being the best also means being good to those around you, remembering you are not above others simply for devoting yourself to a task you deemed worth the little time we have to make an impact in this life. Humility is a belief in the unearned but inherent value of those around us and in the understanding that we ourselves are not above them.

It is a beautiful thing to see an act of faith reap rewards because the truth is that we act on faith every day, whether or not we believe in God. Everyday life is full of risks, and taking risks requires faith. One might think it’s faith in oneself, but you cannot rely on that alone because, the truth is, you can be the best in the world and never achieve what another has achieved for reasons unknown to you. The opposite is also true: you can be told you are the best, yet in your experience, you’ve known many who have surpassed your skill, and still here you stand — in a place where they could have easily been had it not been for chance, fate, or divine providence. Here we find the birth of humility within ourselves. In a world of billions of people — capable people, bad and good people — we are but one. Our blessings in this life are a gift. Hard work is always required, but success is not. So you can be confident you’ve done your best while knowing it was never guaranteed that your best would bless you in this world.

Humility, in many ways, is a discipline — an exercise in self-control. To be humble is to master the ego and tame it, which, for some, proves a feat indeed. There are impulses in us all. They manifest differently, but pride is a human trait that has done more damage to this world than I could ever relay in a mere paragraph. The mastery of pride has led to peace, compassion, and understanding. Humility is simply a name for that kind of self-control — one that those who overindulge in the pridefulness of their own hearts despise. They see humility as an admission of weakness as opposed to a form of strength found in wrestling with the monster within us that wants to devour this world and spit it out in order to claim victory over our fellow man — over the world, even over God. That is how I see pride in its fullest form. Pride enslaves us to a standard that nothing and no one good has ever set — to conceit, self-idolatry, and destruction.

So I say: free yourself from hubris. It is no sin to remind yourself of the beauty in others and that yours is not above their own, but it is most certainly an undesirable trait to be unable to see past your own reflection. We are, all of us, on a time limit — relatively short in comparison to the lifespan of the Earth — a drop of water in a vast ocean, as is commonly said. There will come a time when the material things we once valued will be deemed futile obsessions. But these qualities of goodness — love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — will never pass away. They will always hold weight in the heart, soul, and mind long past the point of our memory in this world.