Humility and Confidence

A Winning Combination

I think one of the challenges and also one of the most beneficial goals for a person is to remain humble but confident

Those two qualities are often treated as opposites, but properly understood they belong together.

Humility means recognizing that you may be wrong, that you do not know everything and that reality is larger than your current understanding.

Confidence means trusting your judgment enough to act, speak and accept responsibility for the consequences and to understand you are capable of great understanding. You have the ability to connect with the Divine.

Humility without confidence becomes self-erasure.
Confidence without humility becomes arrogance.

The mature position is:

I may be wrong, but I am not therefore powerless. I will act according to my best judgment and positive intent while remaining open to refutation.

Perhaps one of life’s central disciplines is learning to stand firmly without pretending to stand above others. Confidence says, I have something real to contribute. Humility says, what I contribute is not the end all and is open to critique.

True confidence does not require superiority. True humility does not require submission. Together they form a grounded sovereignty: the capacity to trust oneself without worshipping oneself — or worshipping others.

False humility often disguises itself as reverence for authority, expertise, status or charisma. But surrendering one’s judgment to another is not humility. It is abdication.

The balance is: Do not make yourself and your thoughts a god. Do not make anyone else or any other’s ideas one either.

© Harry Blazer. All rights reserved.

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