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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.
Got a pretty cool topic going on today, and that is, it's been a kind of confusing one, I'll just say for me, and I think it is for a lot of people when we hear the concept or the idea of humility. It seems, it's just not quite clear, and here's what I mean.
You know, being humble is often thought of as being weak, you know, being weakness. I think a lot of us, think of the Bible, words in the Bible, there's something to the effect of, you know, if you get smacked, you know, turn the other cheek and get smacked again, type of idea, right? And this is considered, the idea is that that means that you're humble, okay? Which I think is where a lot of the confusion comes from, part of the confusion.
I know I hadn't been real clear on it, didn't really understand it. And so my definition is a lot different. It's actually the opposite. Humility is strength, okay.
So let's just take a little dive into humility today to show you the meaning. We'll look at the opposite. And when we hear the opposite that we know the opposite of of humility is, is arrogance or pride.
So what is arrogance? Arrogance gets confused a lot times too. People say, well, you know, you're overconfident. Well, really there's not so much thing as too much confidence. What it is, is overconfidence gets confused with arrogance, which means that, “I think that I'm better than you.” That's arrogance.
So the opposite of humility is pride and arrogance. And pride is kind of the same thing as arrogance in my definition. So here's the example we've used. I've used this example before. I'm going to use this example again.
And that is, a man that I know, was a horse veterinarian here in my town in Las Vegas who was videoed kicking a horse in the head. The video went viral, and the ensuing comments were filled with disgust and hate. A lot.
The vet, the man I knew, ended up committing suicide. And, so let me just be clear about this. I'm not suggesting that he wasn't responsible for his actions, his suicidal actions. He was responsible for that. The things that our community and the things that he saw on media, I think, I would assume had a substantial influence on his decisions.
But ultimately, he's responsible for his behavior, for his actions, right? Including the action of kicking the horse.
And I also want to be clear that in no way am I justifying any of his actions, including the, for definitely for not for kicking the horse, right? I'm not agreeing with or justifying or, or, or saying… I'm not agreeing with by any way or trying to absolve him of responsibility or any of that. This has nothing to do with that.
This has to do with how human beings, you and I treat each other in this world. Okay? And including horses, right?
What do we do when we don't treat each other the way, when we do something wrong? When we make a mistake? When we do something that we regret? When we do something that we have shame for? How do we handle that? And how do we handle that amongst ourselves with each other?
So the interesting part, one of the interesting parts of my story about my friend, veterinarian, the man that I knew that was a vet, is that once it was announced that they found his body and that he was dead, the comments continued. Things like messages like, “Well, he got what he deserved.” And, “Good riddance.” And things like, “Well, I've never laid a hand on an animal and anybody who does deserved what he got.” And so on and so on and such.
So here's my question. Why is it, do you think that, why is it do you think, that we often condemn other people? Why couldn't we say, hey, I disagree with what this man did. Let's prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. Let's try to look at the veterinary licensing board and see if he is able to keep his license or not. Or, how can we avoid this in the future, and what can we do about it in a reasonable, discerning way, right?
As opposed to, “You don't deserve to live.” You know, “Your scum of the earth. You don't deserve to breathe air.” And so on and so forth.
Why do you think we couldn't just leave it alone with disagreeing with the action and taking action towards not having that happen again? And focusing more on the action than the value of the human being, and devaluing and degrading the human being to the extent, the extent that it has been. So why, why, why do you think that is?
Because here's the thing, what I'm going tell you is that condemning and judging other human beings is a weakness. Hear me again. Is a weakness. Okay?
That, so if people… That's why you can't just leave it alone. It comes down to…
Basically, here's a few of the reasons why I'm saying it's a weakness.
Number one, because why couldn't you just leave it alone? Here it is, number one is that we lack the internal strength to confront our own flaws. So we're just not really aware of it. We don't know or we lack the strength to take a closer look at ourselves. And so a lot of times we're projecting things that are internally wrong with us outward, targeting at others as a way to distract from our internal discomfort. Right?
So that's called projection. We project little things that we don't like about ourselves onto other people, and it gives us this false sense of we felt a little bit better about ourselves for a minute.
Second reason is that we do a lot of times is that we harshly criticize others. When we do this, it can create a, a false sense of superiority, right? Like, “I'm better than that. I would never do that.” Just like one of the comments I said earlier, “I've never done that and because you did you are less than, you are…”
You know, and so it gives us a, when we, when we really come down on somebody else and judge them harshly and condemn them and attack other people, we kind of push them down and we have this sense of that we're elevated a little bit and we feel a little bit better.
And this also comes from at the core, okay? This is coming from our need to assert our dominance, or our rightness, is coming from a lack, a lack that an underlying lack of self of confidence and self-worth. That's where that comes from, okay?
Sometimes when we're doing this, also, another thing that can happen is that we, we feel accepted into a group. Like we feel like part of the, part of the, you know, we're part of the group. And so we feel accepted if there's more than one people doing the same type of behavior.
And so if we're not confident in our own position or in our own opinion, a lot of times we fall in with the group. Whether, you know, just to be part of the group and to feel accepted is what I'm saying.
So now listen, do not hear me say that I have not judged or condemned. I'm repeating that. This is not me saying any of that, okay? I'm not condemning the condemners anymore that they're condemning anyone else right now.
Because I have done plenty in my share of condemning other human beings over my lifetime. Okay? I'm endeavoring not to continue to do that, but I have done plenty of that. And I'm not saying that I don't or haven't.
I'm just saying that this behavior, it's a signal of an inner deficiency. It's a sign of weakness, period. End of story. Because there's no other reason to be doing it, if we become conscious of it and aware of it. You can see what's happening, and there's no good that comes from it.
All these minor gains that we get, okay, all these minor gains that we get from attacking other people, from the hatred, from the condemnation, they make us feel better in the moment. But inside of ourselves, inside of our subconscious minds, inside of our souls, it doesn't give us the net gain we're looking for.
In other words, because I, because I pound somebody down and drive somebody down, it does not long-term help me elevate myself and feel better about myself. It just doesn't work that way. It's like a natural law. It just doesn't work.
And so humility, I'm going to come back to... Whoops, thought I had that taken care of earlier, but I didn't and I do now.
So humility is often time is perceived as weakness because, like I said, we think it's turning the other cheek. We think it's not fighting back. Okay. But humility is actually strength. Humility is confidence.
So when we fully, more fully accept ourselves as we are, we give ourselves the capacity to learn and improve and to accept others as they are. As they are.
Humility gives us the ability to be compassionate and empathetic towards other people, towards ourselves and towards other people. We see, in humility we see ourselves and others as imperfectly valuable persons who sometimes do things that we regret and feel shame for. When we see that in ourselves, it makes it, it gives us the capacity to see that in others.
That, my friends, is strength. When we acknowledge our perfect imperfections, we can do the same in other people.
Another aspect of humility is being open, is openness. It's being teachable. It's being coachable. If you ask 100 people if they have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, nearly all of them are going to tell you that they have a growth mindset. Nobody wants to say that they have a fixed mindset if they understand it.
However, the truth really is when it comes down to it, most people would say that. However, a lot of people, a lot of adults I'll say, believe that they pretty well have life figured out. You know, that they know what they need to know and they just operate inside of the world with what they have. And they don't have any perceived, necessarily, need for future development or improvement or education.
Humility is realizing another, is also realizing that we as human beings are works in continual, works in progress. And that we have the ability to progress continually if we choose to do so. We have that ability if we choose.
And when we see ourselves in this way, we give ourselves the gift of evolution that we have the chance to progress. And we can, and then, we can also see others as having the ability to change and improve. Okay?
So humility is not giving up with our values. It's not giving up. It's not being walked on. It's not, it's not not standing up for what we believe that is, for what we believe in. And it has nothing to do with sacrificing, again, it has nothing to do with sacrificing our values or giving in to what we judge to be wrong.
Because we must make judgments about what's right and wrong, about actions, about things in the world that are right and wrong. And it doesn't mean not judging. Okay? It means not judging human beings. It means yes on judging actions, and no on judging human beings' values. Okay, unless you're going to judge them all to be 100% including yours. Okay?
So in summary, you know, really this can be a hard pill to swallow. And that is is that when we really attack others for what they've done rather than look at them with compassion and love, we don't help them.
We don't help them, we don’t help the condemned or the offender deal with their shame. We don't help them process their shame, deal with their guilt. We don't help them be able to easily change their behavior if they want to. We don't make the world a better place.
And guess what? It doesn't help ourselves.
I mean, for no other reason, even if you have a hard time mustering a lot of concern or compassion for other human beings, at least for your own sake. Because it doesn't help you internally to continually exhibit these signs of weakness by showing the lack that's inside of us, by constantly driving other people down.
To be able to look at yourself with openness, with being teachable and open, and imperfect and having that be okay, that is humility. Then you can look at the rest of the world the same way and say, “Those are also imperfect people such as I, I can offer more compassion.”
And what it does is, this cycle does not drive everything down into a more destructive, non-improving cycle. This cycle, when I accept me and I, when I display and exhibit and practice humility, this cycle elevates. It elevates how I feel. It elevates people being able to improve and change in positive ways. It facilitates and gives them space to be able to make the changes that they want to change when people, as we all will, do things that we regret, or we wish that we wouldn't have done, or we know that they're wrong and all of that.
So the summary is, the more we learn to love and accept ourselves, the more we can practice humility, the more we can add value to our lives. You hear me? The more we can add value to our own lives, the more we can add value to our children's lives. The more we can add value to all the people that we love and add value to the world.
Thank you so much for being with me, here with me today for this podcast.
Remember, you cannot fail if you Don't Ever Stop Chasin It.
