This summer I am a Program Director for a residential YMCA camp; that interferes with my posting on a regular basis. Picking up where I left off regarding kindness virtues, the next one is humility.
I view humility as accepting that one is part of a larger, greater whole, rather than at the center or most important part of that whole. Humility can be contrasted with arrogance, or being self-absorbed. Ironically, being too critical of yourself also contrasts with humility, as overvaluing the importance of your own flaws. We can see in this regard that humility and being humble is much different from humiliation.
Humility is “right” for an altruistic species, our original nature, for how we were meant to be. There are accounts of early nomads keeping their lead hunters humble by insulting the game they brought home to eat. Humility is “good” in that we enjoy humble people more than we do arrogant, self-absorbed or overly critical people. Humility breeds kindness when we look beyond ourselves to feel and react to the needs of others.
