To grasp the trait of humility, we must understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. Is it possible to lack confidence and still be arrogant? Absolutely. We must understand the subtle distinctions between the two, and figure out how to be humble and confident at the same time.
A person who lacks confidence feels incompetent and incapable of dealing with life’s challenges. He feels inferior and is convinced that he can do nothing about it. Often, such a person thinks he has never done anything impressive and is incapable of achieving. If he stands strong when challenged, he doesn’t feel proud of his achievement. He doesn’t feel good about himself. Instead, he feels that anyone could do it, and that it is insignificant because it is required of him. And if his accomplishment is too impressive for such logic, he considers it an out of character onetime occurrence that says nothing about him.
An arrogant person thinks he is better than everyone else. He might feel superior because of his possessions or even his accomplishments. But many times, arrogance is a reaction to feelings of inferiority. When a person realizes he is not accomplishing anything significant and feels helpless to change that, he might try to avoid the pain by finding a way to feel above others. This often happens subconsciously, without him realizing it. He might feel superior due to a prestigious lineage, wealth, intelligence, education, handsomeness, popularity, or a host of other advantages. But all these have nothing to do with true accomplishment — which is why it doesn’t make him feel better.
In contrast, a person who is confident and humble realizes he can defeat the yetzer hara because Hashem is helping him. He feels capable of accomplishing significant achievements. He feels good when he does the right thing, especially when it was difficult. He feels close to Hashem, knowing that Hashem is his biggest fan and is rooting for him to succeed. He lives with enthusiasm for accomplishment. He doesn’t beat himself up even when he errs, and he never feels inferior.
What keeps him free from arrogance and its even more dangerous counterpart, complacency, is the knowledge that people cannot be compared to one another. He knows that each person was born into a unique setting with different people around him, different values, and different challenges. He thinks, “If I were put into this person’s situation with his family, school, and traits, who knows how I would act? Maybe I would do the same or worse.”
Thinking about our background enables us to realize that Hashem put us in our life situation because He wants us to become all we can be with this situation. He wants us to overcome our obstacles and reach as high as we can. We can never be complacent, no matter how much we have accomplished. Why would Hashem keep us alive if there were nothing left for us to accomplish? Hashem wants us to continue achieving because He wants more for us.
We must always aim even higher, because that is the point of life. This world is a phenomenal opportunity. As long as we are alive, we can reach higher and become greater! If we remember this and live with excitement about our potential, there is nothing wrong with us being proud of our accomplishments. In fact, it is healthy for us to be excited by the rarity and immense value of what we are accomplishing, so long as we avoid arrogance and complacency.
Although we should never feel above anyone else, we should feel good about ourselves and strive to reach even higher. We should dream of becoming great in the next world, the only place that really matters. We should notice ourselves accomplishing and rejoice! Though we can’t know exactly where we are holding, when we get upstairs, we will be immensely proud for eternity of what we have accomplished.
As always, we must remember that the barometer of whether our feelings are good for us is whether they cause us to serve Hashem better or worse. Does feeling good about ourselves and capable of reaching greatness make us serve Hashem better, or does feeling inferior and hopeless? The answer is obvious. This should prove to us that feeling excitement about accomplishment is the way to go.