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When I came of age in the 1990s, officials gave the impression that wage disparity between genders was best addressed by advising females that they could do anything. Bold, bright pink advertisements convinced me that institutional and cultural obstacles would fall in the face of my self-assurance.

Experts have since disproven the idea that an individual can transform their existence through positive thinking. A writer, in his work Selfie, analyzes how the free-market ideology of fair competition fuels much of personal development trends.

However, I still feel that still believes that if I work hard and create a firm goal map, I can attain my most ambitious goals: the only thing standing between me and my destiny lies within myself. How do I find a harmonious middle ground, a stability between having faith in my boundless abilities but not blaming myself for each setback?

The Key Is Found in Self-Effacement

The answer, per a fourth-century philosopher, a religious leader from Hippo, is humility. He stated that humility served as the base of every other moral quality, and that in the quest for the divine “the first part involves humility; the following, modesty; the last, self-effacement”.

Being an ex-Catholic such as myself, the concept of meekness might stir various unpleasant feelings. I grew up at a time in religious history when caring about your looks was considered vain; lust was unacceptable beyond reproduction; and just thinking about masturbation was a punishable offence.

It’s unlikely that the saint meant this, but throughout much of my life, I confused “meekness” with shame.

Constructive Meekness Does Not Involve Self-Hatred

Being humble, according to psychiatrist Ravi Chandra, isn’t equivalent to despising yourself. A person with balanced humility is proud of their abilities and achievements while admitting that knowledge is infinite. Chandra describes multiple forms of modesty: respect for diversity; respect for elders and youth; modesty in knowledge; awareness of limits; humility of skill; meekness in insight; modesty in the face of wonder; and compassion in pain.

Psychological research has likewise discovered multiple perks arising from modesty in intellect, encompassing enhanced endurance, tolerance and connection.

Meekness in Action

During my career in spiritual support roles with elderly residents, I now think about humility as the act of focusing on someone else. Humility is an act of re-grounding: coming back, breath by breath, to the floor under my feet and the person sitting in front of me.

A few people who tell me repeated tales from their lives, repeatedly, whenever we meet. Rather than counting minutes, I attempt to hear. I try to stay curious. What can I learn from this individual and the stories that have stayed with them when so much else has gone?

Philosophical Stillness

I try to live with the spiritual mindset which expert Huston Smith termed “productive stillness”. Taoist philosophers advise people to calm the identity and exist in harmony with the flow of creation.

This may be highly applicable while people attempt to fix the destruction people have inflicted upon Earth. As written in her work Fathoms: The World in the Whale, author Rebecca Giggs clarifies that being humble allows us to rediscover “the animal inside, the being that trembles in the face of the unknown". Adopting a stance of modesty, of not-knowing, enables us to recognize our species is a part of an expansive system.

The Elegance of Modesty

There’s a desolation and hopelessness that accompanies assuming no limits exist: success – if it involves getting rich, reducing size, or winning the presidential race – turns into the sole valid outcome. Modesty allows for dignity and setbacks. I practice modesty, rooted in the earth, which means all necessities are present to develop.