Do we need to be more humble?
Do we place an excessive amount of self-importance on ourselves?
Our seemingly vast Earth is but a tiny planet. (By comparison, over 1,000 Earths fit inside Jupiter.) Earth is one of eight planets orbiting the Sun — a tiny star by star standards — as part of a planetary System called the Solar System. The Sun resides in the Solar Neighborhood of stars, a small smattering of stars found in the Orion Spur — a nondescript little corner of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a vast city of stars, with enough stars to give 50 to every human on Earth. Right now, you, your family, and the rest of your race are orbiting just one of those stars. — Jeff Goldstein, ‘The Address of a Self-Important World — Humanity Needs a Reality Check’
One of the interesting things that I have found about our generation, and the age of social media, is how quickly and readily we are to praise ourselves and broadcast achievements and milestones (and don’t get me wrong I’ve been there done that too).
Recently I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on this, and have arrived at one question.
How do we show our achievements whilst being humble about them?
I do believe it is important to inspire others through our actions. I also believe that social media is a great platform to build our own brand and open up opportunities for ourselves. But how do we remain humble in doing so? Is this even possible? Well I do think it is yes.
Something I’ve taken up recently which would be one extreme, is to just not post at all. Why?
Recently I’ve been undergoing a lot of self-reflection. I am trying to check myself. I so far do not believe that I have accomplished anything big enough or impactful enough to blast the internet about it. Don’t get me wrong, I did praise myself before on social media and did seek approval from others on things I was working on. This is something I’m trying to change, because I do believe that celebrating successes quietly is more graceful, and success should not be judged by how many likes you get on a post.
In other words, your success should speak volumes to yourself, the people you love and those you’re trying to impact with it. Everything else is just white noise. I guess it proves that we are still a society that cares way too much about being popular.
Please note these are my own beliefs.
Could the energy we use to promote ourselves be re-directed in ensuring we are becoming better people? Are the two mutually exclusive?
The past few months have humbled me greatly, because I have had to start from square one in many senses. Often times it takes getting into difficult points in life to force ourselves to re-examine who we are and how we can become better people.
But even if I do achieve something great one day according to my own subjectivity, do I need to tell the whole world? I don’t know. My view right now on that is no, but who knows, that could change. I guess it depends on what impact that has on others — is it solely to feed my ego or is it going to bring awareness to a cause/inspire others to action?
I’m very curious to know your thoughts on this. Can we be successful and show it on the internet, and also remain humble? How do you try to remain humble? Should we grind away quietly and let the results be the voice of our success? Let me know your thoughts. I’ll leave this with an interesting quote.
“A great man is always willing to be little.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
