Humility is a habit.
I hear Malcolm Gladwell say this in a podcast interview. The statement sticks, and I keep musing on it. Turning it this way and that. Observing it. Considering it.
I’ve long considered humility the virtue most difficult to attain.
This simplifies it. Sums it up. Renders it achievable.
Do I believe this to be true, and how do I shape the habit of humility in my life?
- Don’t wallow in my insecurities
- And don’t rub elbows with Miss-Judge-Others-to-elevate-myself
- Be willing to do the hard thing first
- Live with generosity
- Speak kind words
- Compliment others
- Listen well
- Listen more than I speak
- Be kind to myself for out of this comes honor for the value of each person’s lived experience
- Focus on becoming a person I would enjoy being around
- Cultivate empathy
- Offer understanding
- Ask sincere questions
- Avoid any type of duplicity or insincerity
- Do not flatter
- Grow in gratitude more and more and more
- Listen to the perspective and experience of others
- Seek justice
- Embrace deeply the belief that every person is created in God’s image
- Read the Sermon on the Mount
- Be an apprentice of Jesus
- Disdain Dogmatism
- Eschew Aggressiveness
- Use Armand Gamache’s four guiding principles ~ “I don’t know,” “I need help,” “I’m sorry,” and “I was wrong” {Louise Penny}
- Show up well for the people within my own walls
- Appreciate affirmation without dependence on it or inflation of it
- Hold others in the light
- Reflect the light back
- Sift through criticisms and cut-downs with detached eye. Consider if there is a grain of truth. Own what is mine to own or do, and discard the rest with the garbage
- Cynicism and sarcasm may feel good in the moment, but they will wear thin and will not serve me well in the marathon
- Value life
- Frances Collins asks the question on a podcast. “Have you seen humility go viral?” I have not. Humility does not prove useful as clickbait
- Be ok with uncomfortable situations. A friend says, “Uncomfortable doesn’t equal bad. It’s simply uncomfortable.”
- Do not promise if I can not or will not deliver
- Know my boundaries
- Be authentic
- Sincerity communicates value and worthiness to people I interact with
- Own up
- Value failure as a tool of learning
- Lean in to lighthearted laughter
- Be delighted often
- Never outgrow imagination and wonder and curiosity and playfulness and creativity
- Contentment with where I am and who I am centers me on the course of a Master’s Degree
- Notice
- Sit in silence while my soul catches up
- Bend low to the earth and marvel at the capacity of abundance and prolific profusion found in dirt
- Pause and be where my feet are
- Pay attention to what I pay attention to
- Ask what I am filling my ears with
- Find hidden heroes of humility to emulate
- Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
The habit of humility holds the ability to flourish when I am in need and when I am not.
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