Nuanced topic time. HUMILITY.
I’ve always found humility to be such a beautiful trait. It seems like I’m stating the obvious, but in reality, people are actually more comforted by projections of confidence and people who double down on what they’ve said and done. Those personas tend to attract the crowd.
I’ve never thought of humility as a strength of mine, though anybody who does think they’re good at it has to swallow a good deal of irony. I do know that I value humility enough to really enjoy the presence of truly humble leaders. The ones who prefer to lead by example, who can own an apology. I love working with them. Learning from them. In many ways trying to emulate them.
That’s taught me a couple big things.
💠There are a lot of things that masquerade as humility, a big one being self-deprecation. It can be easy to fake your way into being seen as humble by acting like your own worst critic, but that usually comes from the same wounded ego that births arrogance. It also comes from this weird zero-sum myth that in order to value others, we can’t also recognize our own value.
Sometimes, the people who’ve gotten used to the self-deprecating imitation of humility can be the hardest to work and live with. There’s a wounded ego and a fluency in manipulation.
💠 When Naomi Osaka wrote a reflection on her tennis career last year, she noted that she was often praised for being humble, when really people were seeing a lot of self doubt.
The rules are different for different people. Most of the people I thought of as my role models of humility were older white men. It’s easy for their silence to be seen as humility, while for women, POC, or other underestimated groups, silence may be mistaken as not having anything to contribute.
Sometimes being quiet and blending into the background can be more self serving than anything. Sometimes taking up space can open doors for others. The real question is: is this ultimately about you?
💮💮💮
I think I value humility more than I ever have, but I’ve come to appreciate that it takes way more forms than I initially realized.
Here’s a drawing of K DOT that seemed appropriate for the topic.
HUMILITY.