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Today's
quotation:
Humility
is not weakness; it is the epitome of strength. Humility moves a person away from human, personal weakness
and limitation into divine expression, strength, and expansion.
Donald
Curtis
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Today's
Meditation:
So many
of us are taught to be strong our whole lives long-- we
have to compete, to win, to achieve, to be promoted over
others, to market ourselves, to build our resumes and let
everyone else know what we've achieved. There seems
to be little room for humility in many of our societies of
today, and that's a shame. Because the strength that
we need to show isn't truly strength at all-- it's simply
show, and it's more of a compensatory technique for
insecurities than it is a way of being strong.
If
I'm to be truly strong, I don't need to let anyone know
it. I can be humble, and my humility is a sign to
others that I'm approachable and responsive, that they can
share with me without threatening my sense of self.
A humble person allows others to be strong, and even helps
them to be so, and feels no threat to her or his own
being. The humble woman or man accomplishes many
things, but instead of spending time telling the world
"Look what I've done!" moves on to the next
thing, and then the next.
There's
no problem with being proud of our accomplishments, of
course, but when that pride becomes too strong, we become
much weaker. When we're more interested in letting
others know just what we've done, then our focus shifts
from what we're doing to letting others know what we've
done, and the quality of what we do drops
significantly. The humble person feels no need for
validation from others, because that person realizes that
the validation is fleeting and doesn't serve much at all
over the long run.
When
we allow ourselves to be humble, we open up a source of
true strength. When we no longer concern ourselves
with whether or not others agree with us or like us or
admire us, we live with a freedom that the proud and
arrogant will never know. And that inner freedom and
strength is worth much, much more than anything that can
come from outside of ourselves.
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