Humility: Good Thing / Bad thing?

Humility is the act of feeling or being humble. It's really interesting to me how so many issues, especially those of conflict, seem to get down to the same fundamental issue: people's pride. I'm just as guilty as anyone.... but I do see it as a positive thing: humility is good for me. It teaches me so much. It also is a comfort. For example: When I feel like I am at a total loss with how to deal with my kids... when I feel that nothing is working it's humility that reminds me that "you don't HAVE to have all the answers... you are learning too just like your kids are... you don't have to feel like crap when you think you are being a bad mother... just accept that this is how it is... you can learn from this... isn't it interesting how angry I feel... why is that?" should I acknowledge it when pride creeps in: "Am I angry because I feel that I am the most important person in this equation? I am the one to be obeyed because I am the parent... I am above my child... I should have the power. Am I upset because my children are ignoring my superiority? How dare they given all I do for them! (this is pride speaking)"

What is the alternative? Would a better reminder to myself be: "I am my child's equal in life. It's my job to care for and guide the vulnerable people around me no matter what their age. Parenting with overblown pride will just set up a battle dynamic which will be counter-productive".

Feeling humility and causing humiliation is not the same thing. Humiliating somebody is (I think) a bad thing. It's a denial of their humanity. If maintaining your boundaries though, for example, causes embarrassment to another then that's a different thing. eg: "I'm sorry, I was waiting to be served next" might embarrass somebody if they were trying to push in but that's a consequence of not being observant and up to them to process and be graceful about.

So, I was just wondering about what role other people think humility and feeling humble plays in their life. Is it something worth teaching our children? Is the message they are getting through the media a healthy one? Think about MTV music clips of celebrities strutting around with "attitude" and puffed up portrayal of (I think misguided) pride. Or is it something unproductive... something that just stops us feeling good about ourselves and an enemy of self esteem?

You are making my head hurt again Bath!! lol
have a toddler crawling all over me so cant really respond but subbing for later! :)

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You are making my head hurt again Bath!! lol
have a toddler crawling all over me so cant really respond but subbing for later! :)

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:yeahthat:

Just thought I'd ask... maybe this is why they used to say "Don't educate women, if they think too much they won't want to do the house work" LOL sadly this is true for me today. ETA: I know what it's like to have a toddler distract though :) thanks for reading.

lol Bath - I am sure that is why!

When she has a nap and I can formulate some sort of competent response...;)

I think both pride and humility have their place. I am happy for DS to take pride in doing an 8-piece jigsaw all by himself: it's a good skill. Should he be 14, I'd expect him not to have pride in that achievement. It's an expected skill then.

I am proud of things I do. I know I could do better sometimes, which is good in tempering the pride. I know there are things I'm not so good at. It's foolish pride that would make me do them and not let DH do them when he's better at it. I think it's just realisim we need. Pride in things which are rightfully there to be proud of (something we work hard on or a new skill learnt). Humility in things we know we cannot do as well as others (pretty much everything in life someone can do better than us, so we should acknowledge that). But so long as we know our limits, that's good too.

I'm a lot better at playing monsters than sitting DS down to a game of dominoes - and my mother was horrified by the fact DS couldn't play dominoes, snap... backgammon. I could at 2. I can only get DS to sit down to play trains, not board games. That doesn't mean I'm a bad mother. We play turn-taking games, thing is we take turns to chase and be caught. So I'm not upset that she tried to humiliate me in Early Learning Centre by being shocked we don't play dominoes, I think she's silly for not seeing DS has different needs and is doing well in his own way. Not in her way, but that's not the important way.

I totally agree that it's normal to have pride in things we do... I am proud of lots of things that I have done... and I encourage my kids to be proud of their achievements too. But what I was kinda mulling over is how much self pride is good? When does too much become too much? It's not necessarily about things we do... more about who we are. The pride that stops us from saying we are sorry... the pride that stops us from giving credit where credit is due to a person we might not like but has done something worthy of praise. Do you know what I mean? The negative kind of pride that makes us feel the need to put down others ("ooooh she's too fat to wear that") so that we feel better about ourselves. This is the kind of pride I think is becoming more noticible in society. The kind that makes us define ourselves by our possessions. It's the gangster with that arrogant strut sticking his chin out at every poor bloke who passes him by and demanding "respect"... "hey bro, don't 'dis me!" I mean, what is that??? Whatever it is I don't want my sons to have a bar of it!!!! Guys like that would avoid feeling humble at ALL costs and it's not just an affliction of the young... it's also in the grumpy old guy who insists that "things were better in my day" and refuse to acknowledge anything good about "the youth of today".... it's all essentially misguided pride.

I think Ryn's right about being real. If I'm proud, but am right to be proud (and am proud in the context of knowing my strengths and weaknesses - as opposed to unrealistically saying 'I'm more valuable than other people because I'm good at things') that's okay, and if I'm humble but realistically (as in not thinking 'I'm less valuable than other people because I'm not good at things', but more thinking 'well I'm not good at everything so I don't need to boast and can let other people have their shiny moments') then I think that's good too. :)

I don't say "oooh, that does no favours for her backside" nastily though! I watch the TV and it reminds me why I threw out anything lycra for the backside and I wonder why anyone with my figure would agree to wear that outfit! OK it makes me feel a bit better for throwing out the lycra but mostly I want to show that woman she could look so much better if she did too. I want her to look good, not bad so that I look good.

I really like seeing other women looking good. How else do I get new make-up ideas if other women don't look fantastic? Or how do I see what clothes may suit me if someone with my shape doesn't wear good/bad things first?

As for "dissing" people - I will not respect anyone who cannot say the word "disrespect" in full, let alone use it properly and in context. If you are going to have a word as your little catchphrase then do it properly for pity's sake! The phrase should be "are you showing me a lack of respect?" not "are you dissing (disrespecting) me?" - hmmm, maybe I should start correcting anyone who dares to say this to me.

I know a lot of people who could use a lot of humility LOL! Now thats not at all humble is it ;) Heh.

I think Humility is definitely needed, but I do think some people do blur the lines of being humble and being a martyr. Just as some people define pride as being overly confident which I think is not pride and nor is it humility. Its very easy for lines to be blurred unintentionally. And its very easy to justify to yourself that you are x when really you are y.

For me I try and always think of others (its actually something I'm told I do too much and often the cause of my own hurt), even when I feel I have been hurt or saddened by another's reactions (including my children). I'm not perfect at this obviously, but I do try and I try always to go back over my actions at any time and see how it affected others and if there was anything I could do to change that. Obviously there are times where a persons on insecurities may cause them to have a different reality of a situation but I think even in that instance I can choose my words or actions carefully not to add insult or enable that.

ETA: This reminds me of an interesting conversation that I had with my BIL. Who suggested it was ok to abruptly say to someone that they were board with a certain subject so therefore it was not useful to continue discussing it. I disagree, purely because if someone asks a question even if its a question that has been asked a 100 times before the next time it is asked could lead to a new discussion, a new point of view or even a new answer. And IMO it is good to allow the other person to have that opportunity even if it is a question you don't like answering due to repetition or relevance because then you are allowing that person to learn something else or even allowing yourself to. He then asked me if that made me a victim in conversation, which I don't think it does I think if anything it allows enlightenment (not to be corny) for all involved. And unless a question has one specific answer that would never ever change one can not assume that the conversation is going to be the same each time.

This to me is a conversation about humility within conversation. Yet he sees my humility (which I actually think is etiquette and most people do) as somehow a weakness. Well he did till I explained it in a better way.

Yes I have interesting conversations like this often ;) Bath you should come and have discussions one night over vodkas ;)

I got caught in a thunderstorm today. I was doing the school run... pushing a pram and trying to hold an umbrella over us. I was conscious of all the people in cars, probably mostly parents, looking at me trudging along. I don't drive. I couldn't find the class list to get the phone number of a parent who had offered to drive my 5yo home on rainy days. I don't like to ask for lifts very often... in fact i have only asked once this year. I guess this is pride? It was very embarrassing walking in the storm today.... dodging the sprays of water from the passing cars. But I mused that maybe this was ok... maybe it was character building?

Ryn: I struggle with people who use double negatives: "I ain't no bogan" etc. I wonder why they would want to sound so dumb? But maybe they don't know that they actually called themselves a bogan? Maybe they didn't have the benefit of an education because their parents didn't have their act together enough to get them to school so they fell behind and decided it was too humiliating going back? Or is it the herd mentality that dictates they have to speak that way to "fit into" their group?

DH home early back later!

ETA: sorry missed your post Cai! I'll get back here soon! :) vodka sounds good!

Hmmmm... this has made me think as well.

Yesterday I watched a medical professional make a mistake on my daughter. I knew exactly what was happening, and I thought that either I step up an say something now, or I keep quiet. Someone who was humble to the point of it being a bad thing would keep quiet. Instead, I said "excuse me, but the dye is outside her vein, can you please flush that out" He and the other people in the room (besides my husband who was now on the ground :rolleyes:) turned bright red. I then said "its obviously a dangerous substance with you all wearing protective gear whilst handling it, I would like to protect my daughters arm now thank you". I wasn't swearing at them, I wasn't screaming, I knew what was going on, so I asked them to fix it up. It caused Matilda a deal of pain to fix it up, but it was better than the alternatives. If I were too humble, there may be some reactions for Matilda. If I weren't humble enough I may have caused a scene which would make them upset and unable to do their job properly. Get what I mean?

Bath, I understand what you mean. There were times when I was leaving work to walk home knowing that 4 of my workmates drove past my house to get home. I was too proud to ask for a lift, but too humble to expect someone else to help me out. In the end I decided that people couldn't help me, if they didn't know the opportunity was there.

I get frustrated with friends who don't say when they need help, because I would love to help them if they needed help. I say to them "please let me know if there is anything you need/want/would like help with, so that I can do something... I can't read minds but I really want to do something for you".

It's interesting... I see what you mean Christy about people not being able to read minds... but the family that live directly opposite us send their own kids to my DS's school drive past me every day. The mother asks how my DS is going in Prep... but I assume she is worried that if she offers him a lift one day that she will be lumped with the inconvenience of taking him everyday it rains? :dunno: Actually the mother is really interesting... she used to be ultra friendly and asked me over to her house for a cuppa for a year or two after we moved in... then one day she knocked on my door in tears, she had accidentally locked her toddler in her house and was in a panic because she couldn't get back in. I ran over with her to her house and tried to help her break in. She was on the verge of calling a locksmith. Then I saw an open window on the second story above her garage. I got a ladder from a neighbour who had also come over and despite being several weeks pregnant (no-one knew) I climbed up onto the roof of the garage to see if I could get in the window. I couldn't fit. So I got my 9yo DD and she climbed up and managed to squeeze in the window and rescued the toddler by opening the door from inside. Of course then there were more tears of relief and lots of gratitude... I hugged her and said that I would have been in a similar state etc. But strangely, ever since that day, she has been much cooler toward me. I assume she was embarrassed :dunno: because it's never been the same between us. So I guess this is why I haven't felt confident enough to ask her to give my DS a lift to school. But I will accept the offers of people who have asked me from now on.

I bet she feels a bit silly about what happened Bath.

You know, this last few months for me is proof that sometimes people can't see beyond their feet. I've had so much going on with Matilda's diagnosis of Autism, and her hospital stays and her kidney issues... if I passed someone walking whilst driving I wouldn't even notice :redface:.

My friend broke her foot, and I tried to help, but just couldn't do much other than drop off food because I just couldn't. I hate feeling this way, like I'm missing opportunities to bless others... but its where I am at the moment. I hope that life can settle, but I'm not sure it will anytime soon.