Mar 30 2008
A Virtuous Woman: Humility
And now for the final installment in my series on virtues: Humility. Humility is the counterpoint to pride, which is considered by Catholics to be the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins. In religious terms, pride was what led Lucifer to the mistaken notion that he could take over for the Big Guy, thus resulting in his fall from grace and demotion to Satan. Humility is pretty much the opposite of that–modesty, meekness, courteous respect, lack of arrogance.
Pride in the traditional sense (narcissism, vanity, etc.) is probably not something most women struggle with. After all, aren’t we all so hard on ourselves? Don’t we spend way too much time being critical of our appearance, our homes, our parenting, our bodies, and pretty much anything else we can find? Yes, an over-inflated ego is probably not one of our problems.
Ah, but pride is insidious and sneaky. Do you feel like only you can clean your house “the right way”? Everyone else just doesn’t know how to do it properly. Do you have Supermom syndrome, where you find yourself over-scheduling your life with work, volunteer commitments, social outings, and activities for your kids, knowing that “you can do it” even if no one else can? If you’re a working mom, do you look down on SAHMs or vice versa? If you’re a vegan or vegetarian, do you look down on the unenlightened masses who continue to eat meat? Does it give you a self-righteous dash of pride to say at a barbecue, “No thanks, I don’t eat dead animals”? Have you ever felt better than a woman who chooses not to breastfeed or who feeds her kids packaged, unhealthy food? If you went to college, do you feel like you’re better or smarter than people who didn’t, even if they’re otherwise successful?
And here’s a big one–when was the last time you asked someone for help? Yeah, I know. That one gets me too.
I don’t know about you, but there are definitely areas in my life where I could stand to practice a little bit more humility. It’s incredibly difficult (humbling, one might say) for me to ask for help. I have tended to equate education with intelligence, even though neither of my parents went to college and they’re among the smartest people I know. Before I had surgery last year, I often felt superior to people who didn’t exercise. Three months flat on my back pretty much cured me of that, but I still have a lot of work to do…
What are your humility “trouble spots”?
Table of contents for Virtues
This is something I’ve been working on for the last year or so.
One of my big goals is learning how to love unconditionally which has meant learning how to love strangers and people who are sometimes unloveable.
Which has meant learning how not to look down on others. As someone who was never a “pretty” girl, I took pride in my intelligence and did tend to feel superior to people whom I thought to be less intelligent, intense, or serious-minded. People whom I believed to be frivolous and shallow.
I’ve really learned a lot about humility from some of the very people that I thought I couldn’t be friends with because I didn’t think they were serious thinkers. I’ve learned about love and compassion and generosity and I am so thankful I opened myself up to the possibilities.
Meanwhile, I’ve grown somewhat distant from someone I love due to that person’s exacting standards and expectations of others. Before I changed, we used to joke about other people misusing words or saying stupid things or what they wore.
Now my challenge is how to keep loving this person and have a meaningful relationship and not feel superior because I’ve become a goody-goody.
I think what I’ve really learned through this process is that there is good in everyone if we’re willing to look for it and that everyone is on his or her own path. None of us can judge anyone else.
Sorry for the long comment. Hope I didn’t ramble on too much.
Yeah, I have a hard time figuring out the balance between too much and too little. I don’t think I’m ever on the right side of that one.
Funny the last virtue should be humility. After the weekend I had, I definitely could use some humility in my life, it is just so hard…
~K
Super post. Humility is the toughest. My pride shows itself in the kitchen when hubby is baking with me. I think I know better.
He levels everything off to the last grain or drop. Drives me nuts. I throw ingredients in by eye.
Hugs, Nancy
I ponder this one daily
how to teach it to my toddler
how to ever explain it well to her as a young girl
is it simply showing through example?
and how HARD that shall be…
M.
I know I have plenty of issues around this one, but one that bothers me about others is when people correct other people on their language use. Informal speech is just that. When people find out I have a degree in English, they smirk at me and say, “Oh no! Are you going to correct everything I say?” Why would I do that? As long as I understand you, I really don’t care how you say it.
I will correct children I’m related to, because they are learning. But I assume that adults have learned what they plan to learn in that area, and I’m not going to presume that they need me to teach them anything.
When people correct others on their speech, they just look so pompous. It’s a total turnoff.
However, I felt my face turn bright red when I read the line about cleaning the house the right way. Yup, that’s me. My husband is really lacking in the attention to detail department, so I find that it’s easier to do all the cleaning myself so that it is done right. Of course, I fall behind often. So is it better to have someone clean more often, even if it’s not all the way? Or get it done right, only not on so regular a basis? Hmmm, methinks my pride may have gotten quite in the way here…