Humble

Humble:  Having or showing a consciousness of one's defects or shortcomings; not proud; not self-assertive; modest.


We discussed humility in the meeting today.  Step 7 is generally considered to be the location of the Mother Ship of information on humility.  I like that the definition implies that when I'm willing to look at where I may be defective then I'm considered to possess at least some humility.  There's no groveling self-abasement or lack of self-respect in the definition.


"Oh my god," said SuperK.  " Self-awareness of your own defects.


Pride:  An over-high opinion of oneself; exaggerated self-esteem; conceit.


Humility is a difficult concept for me to understand in theory and, from what I heard at the meeting today, I'm not alone.  The best observations I heard today were from other confused people who weren't thinking about how to get humility overly much; rather, they were taking action of some kind.  ANY action seemed to be the idea.


One dude said: "I try to make everyone that I run into smile."


How simple is that?  IO can do that.  I can take that action which a friend says leads him to serenity.  When I first entered The Program I was over-whelmed and discouraged by all of the the difficult concepts I read in The Steps.  How was I ever going to get a handle on them?


"Don't worry about all that," my trusted mentors told me.  "Clean out that coffee pot and I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow morning."


Simple as that.