Are We Humble, or Are We Danger
Humility, it is so important to stay humble. In the past, I’ve had great difficulty in understanding where I stand in relation to others. Oftentimes, I either feel like I’m much worse than I actually am, and every so often, I feel like I’m better than I actually am. My appreciation for my own ability is skewed; not often do I feel like I have the appropriate appreciation for where my skill is compared to others. There’s a number of reasons for that, primarily because I don’t spend enough time with people who are better than me, simply as a byproduct of not spending time with all that many people in general. However, I’d like to change that. I would very much like to change that, if for no other reason than to stay humble.
Humility is Recognizing Weakness
There are two separate activities that I like to participate in that recently I have felt quite humbled in: one is cycling and the other is golf. They both provide a humbling experience in their own ways. For golf, the humbling is less about other people being better than me, but about me just not being that great at something. Whereas with cycling, I am pretty strong, but there are other people who are much stronger. My argument is that spending time doing something that others are better than you at, or spending time doing things that you’re not very good at, is good for the soul. It provides a window into humility, an opportunity to recognize your weaknesses.Â
Weakness is Opportunity
I think even more so than recognizing weaknesses, humility gives you a chance to see opportunity itself. Whether that’s opportunity in your own improvement or opportunity in general just for things to get better, not even you. But it’s an uncommon opportunity. I’m unsure if people embrace and appreciate that opportunity to grow enough, whether or not it’s theirs to be had.
Biking
My most recent experience with a humbling opportunity was riding my bike in the yearly Pedal PGH event, where cyclists all throughout western PA (predominantly within Pittsburgh) come to ride a day’s worth of riding within the city. This year, the longest route was a 50-miler, and I partook in that to my enjoyment. It was a blast! I met a ton of really cool people, rode my bike with a ton of other great Pittsburghers who also appreciate riding bikes, and it was an awesome experience.
However, I was not the strongest rider around by far. There were many people who passed me and were putting out incredible watts, just awesome power numbers that I couldn’t keep up with. Even though I tried to keep up with a few of the speedy bois for a while, I couldn’t keep up with them forever. I’ve always said I’m more of an endurance athlete, but I have a feeling that those guys not only are much faster than me, but could probably go much further and for longer than I could. I’d bet on that fact. There’s a feeling that I get when a cyclist passes me going much faster than me. A feeling so irresistible, I want to chase them every time. I need to chase them; I don’t want to let them just pass me without putting up a fight. I guess you could say that I’m striving to be on their level. Sometimes I can ride with those guys for a little while, but other times they just go right on past me, and there’s just no chance of me even catching up, no matter how hard I pedal. A few times, actually, I’ve ridden with them and then they attacked, which is also so humbling because you think you can keep pace and then they dial it up a notch and you realize you had no chance all along. That happened to me today, actually, during the ride, and it was tremendously humbling.
Golfing
Golf, on the other hand, is a completely different sense of humility. Golf is probably one of the silliest sports. It does require a great level of hand-eye coordination, and when you’re playing well, it’s a blast! But when you’re not playing so good, it can take its toll. You have to be very mentally strong in order to override the embarrassment or feelings of weakness when you play golf, because if you don’t, the game will eat you alive. You will continue to perform poorly, and if you’re not careful, that will create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s something to be said about humility and not falling into that trap, that negative self-fulfilling prophecy. Humility teaches you to continue on, keep your head held high, and appreciate your own ability regardless of where that ranks in comparison to other people.
Believing in Yourself with Humility
Self-reliance and confidence that comes from within oneself (and not validated externally by others) is not always the easiest advice to listen to, and this example is really no different. To be humble is to know your limits, to understand your weaknesses and where you’ve got room to grow. Having that positive mentality alongside humility will get you so much further in life than leading with arrogance and a feeling that there is no way for you to improve.
