I’ve found myself giving a lot of consideration, today, to the differences between humility and humiliation.
Let’s take a close look at both. Humility is defined as a modest or low view of one’s self-importance—having humbleness. Conversely, humiliation is defined as feeling ashamed and foolish by having one’s dignity and self-respect injured, especially in public.
So why was I wondering on these today? Well, I got to thinking about how I have a drive to better myself. How, being stagnant and remaining as such when I’ve recognized areas that could use improvement just isn’t for me. And that got me to contemplate all the parts of myself that I’ve fine-tuned over the years.
Some have been relatively easy adjustments, while others have taken a near miracle to pull off. Pondering this more, I realized a pattern. The easier self-improvements took little effort, and their lasting changes stuck right from the start, allowing me the chance to achieve some semblance of humility. But the same hasn’t always been the case with the more challenging parts of my character, needing fine-tuning.
And it was there that I noticed something, which hadn’t occurred to me before. The more difficult elements of myself that I wanted/needed to change were those that demonstrated little to no humility. And ironically, the processes of change that had the biggest and best lasting results were those that involved some form of humiliation.
That got me to thinking further. Since those less-than-desirable parts of my character displayed no sense of humility to begin with, did that make ridding myself of them necessary by means of humiliation? Or was it because they showed no humility that my change was more assured through humiliation?
I’ve been contemplating this the better part of today, and the answer I’ve come up with is, I have no idea. And really, do I need to? Can’t it be enough to know that change has occurred?
No comments:
Post a Comment