Why is Humility a Good Quality?

Humility is a great virtue but it is also something we often get wrong. At its core humility is the capacity to avoid getting wrapped up in one’s own self importance. If a person is humble then they are able to see themselves as unimportant. This does not mean that they see themselves as bad or worthless.

This a very common mistake with humility, one that I have made. We often think that humility involves bringing one-self down or thinking badly of one-self. Self-degradation is not humility. A humble person does not degrade and deride him/herself. Rather she/he has an immense sense of self-worth, so much so in fact that she does not need to stand out above others in order to validate her sense of self worth. A humble person is at peace with themselves and their value and does not need to viewed as significant by others. So we see that the relationship between humility and self-worth involves an inversion. The apparent lack of significance outwardly in a humble person is indicative of an immense significance inwardly; the humble person is his own source of worth. Humility thus is not a matter of thinking poorly of one-self, rather it is a matter of the opposite. The humble person has a genuine sense of self-worth and because of this is able to forego his/her need to be viewed as significant by others.

Thinking poorly of one-self in fact produces arrogance and boastfulness. Where self-worth is the root of humility, insecurity and inferiority is the root of arrogance and boastfulness. The sense that one is inferior naturally leads to the desire to assert one-self as significant. This is a simple matter of psychological mechanics. The sense of inferiority wants a remedy and that remedy is sought in the good opinion of others. The person with a sense of inferiority seeks to viewed as significant in the eyes of others in order to validate his/her own self-worth.

We seem to recognize that humility is indicative of an immense sense of self-worth. It is no surprise then that we often hear humility praised. We value people who are humble, especially those who have achieved substantial success. This is no surprise because humility is a substantially valuable virtue. Humility has benefits for us beyond the fact that it is indicative of self-worth. Its value manifests in numerous domains and some are more governing than others. In this article I will list just two of what I take be the benefits of being humble. There may be many others and if you feel that an important one is not included please leave a comment.

1. Humility and Sharing in the knowledge of others:

A common piece of advice given by successful entrepreneurs is to surround yourself with and learn from people who know more than you. Surrounding yourself with people who know more than you and relying on them boosts you to a level that you would not be able to attain on your own. This is of course a rock solid principle: If you want to succeed at something seek out the experts and share in their knowledge.

Now to do this requires humility. Ultimately in order to share in the knowledge of those who know more than us, to learn from them, we must defer to them. We must be able to recognize and be comfortable with their authority, this requires humility, we must be able to side-line our own opinion and defer to that of the expert. This is a great capacity because it allows us to share in and progress towards a level of expertise we do not possess.

2. Humility and Appreciating the value of others

Another benefit of humility is that makes it possessor more appreciative of others. A person with humility can much more readily recognize and appreciate the value of others than an arrogant and self-important person. In fact an essential feature of arrogance is a devaluation of others. The arrogant person sets himself above others, as better than them. Such a person firstly struggles to recognize the value of others because part of his prejudice consists in his belief that they lack value, at least in relation to himself. Secondly if he actually manages to recognize the value of someone else this person will be experienced as a threat. A person who is perceived as possessing value of a similar degree threatens to topple the pedestal upon which the arrogant person has placed themselves.

We can in fact see from this that humility is a necessary constituent of harmonious inter-personal relationships. An essential element of healthy inter-personal relationship is mutual respect where both parties have a healthy valuation of one another. Relationships are doomed to failure when one person believes themselves to be above the other person by failing to recognize the value of that person. Now arrogance is nothing other than viewing oneself as more important. This means the value of the other cannot be recognized and appreciated and harmony will be undermined. The person who is humble will easily recognize the value of the other and will naturally appreciate it because it is not threatening.

Humility of course surely has many other benefits. How else does humility benefit us? Is there any benefit to boastfulness and arrogance? If so then what are those benefits? Please share your thoughts on these questions in the comments section below. I am curious to hear your voices on this topic.