Fake Humility

Fake Humility

What is Fake Humility?

Fake humility is the kind of humility that you don't want to see in others, and you don't want to see it in yourself. It's fake. That means it looks like humility but since it's fake there is no humility there and in a different set of circumstances it becomes apparent. Let's take as an example a subordinate and a boss. Imagine the subordinate looks up to the boss, treats the boss with deference and respect and does everything to make the boss happy. The subordinate is self-effacing, always saying that they can't do things well and downplaying all their activities and roles. Now when the time comes and the subordinate becomes the boss, their tone changes. They now trumpet their good points and qualities and say nasty rude things about the abilities of the people below them. In other words they're not humble at all. They never were humble. They only showed fake humility. This is the kind of thing that we don't like and we don't want to see. But it's difficult to see through.

What Can We Do?

The best we can do is scrutinize ourselves. Scrutinize the things we say and do and our true motives. Now one thing I've discovered through my sweeping breath activities is that I am the consummate liar to myself. I'm very effective at lying to myself and very effective at making myself believe my own lies. Only by scrutinizing my past behavior and memories have I been able to see through some of the lies. I have seen my false humility. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm not going to tell the whole world about my false humility (I mean I won’t talk about the examples). There's no point in and that nothing to be gained.

Honesty

But I have become more honest with myself than I was before. This honesty is helping me to change my attitudes and tone towards others.

Change is Like a Container Ship

Changing yourself is like steering a tanker ship. You start to turn the wheel, and the ship continues to go in the same direction. Ships are very slow to turn because they're large and they have tremendous momentum. The same is true of our lives when we have many attachments. Those many many attachments give us enormous momentum, and it becomes very difficult to change in any meaningful way. But as you slowly cast off these attachments you become more nimble. You become lighter. Change becomes a little bit easier.

How About Other People?

How about fake humility in others? I don't worry about it anymore. As I become more honest with myself, other people's lies are less and less important. Has a cast off my attachments that includes attachments to others, and there lies have less impact on me. It's amusing to see people showing fake humility, but it doesn't make me angry and it doesn't hurt me.

Losing Attachments Side Benefit

That's one of the other great benefits of getting rid of your attachments: you become immune to personal attacks made by other people. Personal attacks are only effective against people who have lots of attachments. If you yourself have very few attachments then it simply doesn't matter what other people say or do to you within reasonable limits.