Everybody has an opinion. Your opinion of yourself has a lot to do with how you feel on a daily basis. My friend Kirk included an interesting thought within his e-mail today that said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” People often confuse humility with having a poor opinion of yourself, but that is just as much a pride problem as thinking you are better than other people. What you are really saying is that your own opinion is somehow better than, or superior to the opinion of others. So your spouse thinks you are awesome but you think you stink. Your friends think you are incredible but you think you’re miserable. You think you are worthless but God thinks you have immeasurable worth. Who is likely to be right? Don’t cling so tightly to your own opinion that you remain stuck in your private captivity. Opinions can change!
Hello,
I just stumbled onto this site, so I’m joining the discussion late but thought I’d add a comment anyway.
To me, this concept of believing others’ opinions of us (especially positive opinions!) underscores the importance of giving feedback. Too often, in my own life, I draw conclusions from others based on their non-verbal cues. Just as often, I fail to express appreciation or to recognize another’s contribution or strength. When we fail to give appropriate feedback, our communication is lacking, we miss out on opportunities to recognize strengths in ourselves and others, and we also limit our growth by failing to understand how others perceive us.
I look forward to catching up on other posts and comments here….
My friend Art adds this comment…
A nice follow-up to this would be the converse. I often find people confusing self confidence with arrogance. There are stark differences. Most self confident people I meet recognize their strengths AND their weaknesses, yet they choose to focus and leverage their strengths while humbly paying respect to their weaknesses. Those that I find are arrogant (how I define it) either cannot see or choose to ignore their weaknesses. There are many other differences but this is one I most always see. Since you and I know there must be opposition in all things… think about the ramification of choosing to ignore or being blind to your weaknesses. You would really never truly understand your strengths.
Wow! “Don’t cling so tightly to your own opinion that you remain stuck in your private captivity.” Staying stuck in your private captivity comes as a result of not facing your giants. Sometimes, we choose to remain in captivity because we are rutted in the same patterns of thinking we have maintained since our major life”event” occured. By choosing to experiment on the word and believe the worthy opinions others have of us, a confirmation will often come that they (family, friends, the Lord) have been right all along about us, and we can find peace.
The thought that comes to mind when I read this M-Power, is that just as you have reasons for your opinions based on the combination of your observations and reasoning, those around you also have a reason for their opinions.
If your friends, or your spouse think you are incredible, or awesome, then what reason do they have for thinking so? They may be observing things about you that you are not. They may be seeing things about you that you yourself, are blind to.