“To be truly humble is to accept and honestly try to be ourselves. None of us is perfectly good or perfectly bad.” (The Basic Text, p. 36)
Only Human – Jason Mraz (4:34)
African Shaman Performing Levitation (2:21)
Zimbabwe Tribal Dance Meditation (6:56)
How have you been “truly humble”, lately?
“ANOTHER GREAT DIVIDEND” –
“Another great
dividend we may
expect from confiding
our defects to another hu-
man being is humility – a
word often misunderstood .”
“[It] amounts to a clear re-
cognition of what and who
we really are, followed by
a sincere attempt to be-
come what we could
be.” (12 & 12 p. 58)
WE ARE ONLY HUMAN, AFTER ALL –
“To be truly
humble is to accept
and honestly try to be
ourselves. None of us is
perfectly good or perfect-
ly bad. We are people who
have assets and liabili–
ties. Most importantly,
we are human.” (The
Basic Text, p. 36)
“The life of every
man is a diary in
which he means to
write one story, and
writes another; and his
humblest hour is when
he compares the vol-
ume as it is with
what he vowed
to make it.”
– James M. Barrie (1860 – 1937) Scottish, playwright, Peter Pan
I have simply been humbled by acceptance of afamily I just found through DNA matching.
Humility is a principle which I gather from the literature is crucial to lasting recovery and yet I must admit it is a word that I use often but rarely understand. I know enough about the term to know that I just exercised some by my admission of ignorance but that does not help me anymore to understand the term. The best definition I have come accross was given by Bill Wilson himself when he stated: “humility is knowing exactly who and what I am.” (I may be paraphrasing but the concept is right). That being said, Tiger Woods could make the statement “I am a very good golfer” and he would still be exercising humility so long as he was not boasting or comparely himself directly to a less qualified golfer. On the other hand, Tiger would not be exercising humility is he was to say “actually I am not that good of a golfer”; rather, that would be modesty (unless of course he honestly believed what he was saying about his ability. In my own case, I often comment that I am a good public speaker and I am being humble when I say that because it happens to be true; whereas, I am also being humble, not modest, when I say that I am a terrible golfer because that happens to be true as well. I can quickly transform humility into pride or boasting when I make the claim at the expense of someone who has trouble speaking in public. Like so many other crucial principles to lasting recovery I have so much more to learn on this topic and I welcome others to comment on anything I have stated. I will finish wish a short joke. I man was presented with an award at the local chamber of commerce banquet for being the Humblest Man in the Community and he was given a ribbon to signify the award. As soon as he wore the ribbon the took the award back.
I don’t feel I’ve been humble lately at all. The minute I feel like I’m getting my ego under control something carries me away again and its off to the races.
Is there such a thing as “false humility”? Maybe it is the flip side of false pride. Maybe false humility is not acknowledging the talents and gifts given to me by my Higher Power. Where false pride seeks validation based on other people’s perceptions of me, false humility is an excuse for not exercising power in my own life. False humility says I do not have to do my best because my best will never be good enough.
Sometimes I am embarrassed about being human – is that like a total self rejection? it IS totally humbling.