Is humility really all it's cracked up to be?

A quick Google search will bring up the Wikipedia page on humility; it defines humility as "the quality of being modest, reverential, politely submissive, and/or self-abasing, and never being arrogant, contemptuous, or rude".  Before doing this search, if asked, I would tell anyone that I think it's a good thing to be humble but today I was thinking about humility and pride and now I'm less enthused about the concept and the balance between humility and pride.


How do you balance being confident and having a healthy amount of self-respect and self-love for yourself with being in touch with your humanity and aware of your shortcomings and limitations?  I don't think you achieve this through self-abasement or anything that builds a slippery slope toward it.  I don't even think there is something about humility or its connotation that makes it the opposite of arrogance, contempt or rudeness.  Humility is, in some ways, equally flawed.  Being modest sounds like being dishonest or omitting the truth about one's qualities, being reverential seems to misdirect praise if done all of the time and being submissive -- well that's pretty much self-explanatory.  If this is what it means to be humble, no thanks.


I think it's more important to understand and see value in what you have in common with others rather than to constantly illuminate differences.  But I'm also appreciative of differences.  Audre Lorde once said that "it is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”  I wholeheartedly agree with her.  Some of those differences amount to increased and decreased propensities and tendencies that manifest into our skills and abilities.  And when I excel at one of my skills and abilities, it is good for me and my self-esteem to acknowledge that I've done well or that I've been successful.  It would also be rude for others to deny that that is the case.  But it's important for everyone to understand our equality.  We're not better or worse than each other, we're different.  I don't have to pretend to be less than to make others feel more comfortable or to make people feel like I understand and have something in common with them.  I can esteem myself as well as others.

Now, I will say that I have accomplished a lot and, by my own standards, not enough.  There are many things I still wish to do and I won't be satisfied until I do them and do them well, I might add.  The closest traits I have to humility are those that allow me to always hunger for more, to aim higher, to be only temporarily satisfied with myself before I move on to the next source of my satisfaction.


So I guess I'm not humble anymore...