Humility: The Quiet Guest at the Table

Humility is a slippery thing. Try to catch it in your hand, and it will slip through your fingers like water. The moment you think, Ah, there it is. I am humble now, it ducks out the back door, leaving pride wearing its clothes.

We often mistake humility for self-deprecation, for the person who lowers their eyes and mutters, “Oh, I’m not much of a musician,” even while their fingers dance on the piano keys like they were born there. Or the other kind of false humility, which is really just pride in shabby clothing—me saying I’m not much of a musician (which is true) and then quietly feeling noble for being the sort of honest man who admits it.

True humility doesn’t work that way. Houston Kraft once said, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” It’s the art of stepping aside in your own mind, of giving your soul a little room to breathe, the way you’d scoot your chair over to make space for a stranger at the table.

Humility is the stranger at the table. It’s looking at the world and seeing it brimming with other lives as real and vivid as your own. It’s walking down the street and feeling no need to measure your life against anyone else’s because you know, deep down, you belong to the same great, messy family. The thrill of a well-played song is no greater when it comes from your fingers than when it comes from someone else’s. The world is simply more alive because someone played, and that’s enough.

The hard truth about humility is that you can’t force it, and you can’t fake it. You can only practice the gentle habit of forgetting yourself for a while. Watching the wind move the trees. Listening to a child tell a story. Letting someone else’s joy count as your own.

If pride is loud and hungry and always ready for applause, humility is quiet and full. It slips in through the side door and sits with you, and suddenly, the world feels bigger than you thought.