How often do you do this? How do you respond to a person who is humble in character? How often do you meet people who you think are humble? Is it refreshing? I'm defining humble as:
Another vein of humility that I'd like people to touch on is this:
How comfortable would you feel deferring or submitting yourself to someone even though you have absolutely no reason to? You and the other person are equal in intelligence, ability, and rank but you humble yourself to them, or rather take on the 'lesser' role. The person isn't trying to take advantage of you or be malicious towards you, but you choose that to be your role in this particular relationship. How would you feel about this dynamic?
I guess I'll ask if you think you're a humble person, but my inner cynic tells me this is like asking if someone thinks they're a good person. Everyone thinks they are but uh...
I don't think pride necessarily means you think you're better than others. I think arrogance is undeserved pride, but I think that pride can be deserved and that to acknowledge when pride is deserved is not the same thing as arrogance; arrogance is overestimation of the esteem deserved.
But I suppose pride and arrogance can both be wrong if they are coming from the wrong place; that is, from a mindset of comparing oneself to others.
I don't like when people compare themselves to others, I guess because I find the mindset so damaging to anyone who has it. You'll never feel okay if your worth comes from how you stack up against others. It's an impossibility. And the thing is, when you compare yourself to others and claw your way to the top of the pile, where does that leave the people beneath you in the pile? Where is their worth? If YOU get your worth from how you compare, why shouldn't they? And why shouldn't they have low self-worth because you are better? In the end, you can't have everyone be as good as everyone else. And I think worth is something everyone should be able to recognize in themselves, and that just can't happen in a system of comparison. That's not to say you shouldn't be able to see how and in what ways you are better and worse than others; it just means your worth shouldn't come from that evaluation.
Arrogance, to me, seems like a cover-up for unstable self-esteem and unstable worth. It can only develop in a person who subscribes to the comparison model of self-evaluation, I think. In order to feel okay, they have to feel like a big shot and better than others, and because they are implying that worth comes from how people compare to each other and implying they think they are better than you, they are implying that you are less worthy.
But I kind of came up with all that on the spot.
How comfortable would you feel deferring or submitting yourself to someone even though you have absolutely no reason to? You and the other person are equal in intelligence, ability, and rank but you humble yourself to them, or rather take on the 'lesser' role. The person isn't trying to take advantage of you or be malicious towards you, but you choose that to be your role in this particular relationship. How would you feel about this dynamic?
I don't really understand what you mean by take on the 'lesser' role and 'submit yourself' to the other. Sounds weird to me. I mean, what are you saying?
I might know what you're talking about. Here's my guess. You mean that someone isn't worried about being in charge?
I think in most cases, this is a sign of maturity and a sign of someone who has moved beyond comparing himself to others. If he can say, "Yeah, it doesn't matter who's in charge, all that matters is that we respect each other, listen to each other's input, and work together," I think he's achieved something great. But if he's saying, "My input sucks, I'll let you have all the input, don't mind me, I'm not important," then I'd say... no, he doesn't respect himself enough.
