I used to be extremely confused about Humility, the virtue. Not the culture, not the norm but the actual virtue where our motive, our heart and our intention was concerned. Was it to disregard our strengths and to keep it in the dark? Was it to esteem others more gifted, stronger, “luckier”, lovelier, and more refined? Even if we tried to practice all of those, and this I’ve tried, it would only be damning to us because this outward action in turn stirs up this anger in us. It’s an anger generated from our undeniable pride. I’m amazed when someone tells me that they have no pride. They confuse low self esteem with humility. Low self esteem, now I kind of understand is this vicious cycle of our pride being hurt and our effort in coping with the hurt. If we truly study our thoughts and our reactions to our circumstances, I don’t think anyone can deny this innate trait we have called pride. We take offense because of pride. We get hurt because of pride. We get angry because of pride. We beat ourselves up because of pride.

So what is humility? What is this virtue that our world has taken for granted, only mimicking the definition through mindless “copy cat” actions? We use honorary terms with an empty mind, we take off our shoes before entering without knowing why. Even if we knew why, we wouldn’t have a heart filled with worship or gratitude or even of conviction.

See… Now we must see that everything that enters our body must come out. Inevitably, everything that goes into our mind and soul must go to the right source. All honor and credit for who we are and what we are must go to the right source in order for us to have the RIGHT humility. We can only truly appreciate someone else when we know for a fact that the beauty in this person should be credited to the right source. If we don’t, our so called appreciation and humility is marred… it’s, for lack of a better word, fake and full of envy. We can be proud of our gifts and our talents and our loveliness when the credit goes to the creator. I must be bold about this and I know that the world might hate me but the truth is the truth IS the truth. The truth will set you free.

My first step to humility started here. I was upset about being upset that I was not appreciated and given credit for something I had put my hard work in through a gift that I had. Do you see how many “I’s” there are in that sentence? That is the root cause of all our deep felt issues. It’s that we start with “I” and end with “me.” And so I prayed and asked that this pride be removed from me. He answered with a very simple truth. “You see,” he said, “and you must see, that you are upset that you didn’t get credit for something I gave you… You and I are in the same yet very different boat…Imagine me, I made the whole world, and I don’t get credit for it.“