Heroes of Humility.

"By pursuing humility we will never attain it." ~ Worthington.

I recently read a fascinating book "Humility the Quiet Virtue" which massaged my mind and stirred my soul. The book hypothesized steps toward developing humility including nixing narcissism, eliminating entitlement, defeating pride, cultivating an accurate sense of self and practicing additional virtues. Truly worthy aspirations in todays ego centric, fifteen minutes of fame, media driven society. Then it paradoxically stated - "By pursuing humility we will never attain it" - talk about a catch 22. ~ So what the heck are we supposed to do?

Being an ardent admirer of quiet professionalism and individuals who embody the challenge put to each of us to "Be the change you want to see in the world" this presented an additional dilemma. We all inevitably gravitate to self interest as a default so how do we address this lack of virtue without, as Mr Worthington says, addressing it?

The answer was refreshing and simple - We are provided inspiration and guidance by identifying, reading about, learning from and deferring our ego to one’s own “Heroes of Humility.” ~ We must defer to learn.

What does it all boil down to? Everyone should have some capacity to feel humbled by something at some point, to be conscious, even fleetingly, of the fact we are not the centre of the universe, all-powerful, all-knowing. But some people never do, even when confronted by the full majesty of their ignorance or human limitations. How do we each address this? Find our own “Heroes of Humility” and learn from them.