The Case Against Humility

Do you have humility?
Are you modest?
Are you humble?

I have never understood and I will never understand
Why people care more about my ego than I do.
You may laugh, but hear me out:

If you ask me, I don't have one.

Again, please hold your laughter until the end of the performance.  
I have weakness, I have strength,
I have truth, I have insecurity--
Sometimes I lie to myself.
But this is not an ego.

I'm keenly aware of my flaws.
But I'm confident in myself and who I am,
And the work I've put in
To be smart
To be educated
To be strong
To be kind
To be better.

Yet I know,
Keenly I know,
I've met thousands of people
Smarter, stronger, kinder, better,
More perfect,
Who put in more,
Who are less lazy.

Just name a virtue
And I'll tell you who has more of it than me.
But luckily I don't have to choose
Between respecting others
And pretending I'm better than I am
Because not everything in life
Is a competition.

I know what it's like to be the dumbest person in the room.
I know what it's like to be less attractive than you used to be--
To let yourself go a little bit, to not be skinny like you were last decade.
I know I make mistakes all the time.

I know I have good instincts,
Can be interesting to talk to,
Can think for myself,
Can be charming,
Can have some emotional intelligence.

But I also know I'm wrong about things all the time.
I know I can come to wrong conclusions.
Sometimes I take positions I'll later change--
I think things I'll cringe at someday
When I've become more patient and more advanced in my learning.

I know sometimes I hurt feelings unnecessarily,
And do things that harm others
Out of selfishness or carelessness or cluelessness.
Is forgiving yourself being arrogant?
Does asking that question mean you're an ass?

I know these things not because of some inflated sense of self-importance,
But because strengths and weaknesses alike--
They're observable, if you're willing to look and see.

And I know what people might say
"No, no, humility is only the virtue
Of not thinking too highly of yourself."

But too often,
People use humility as a trick
To artificially lower other people's expectations
In exchange for compliments after exceeding them.
I've done it before, and it was a lie when I did it too.
And although it's better than talking a bigger game than you can play,
And perhaps we should err on the side of humility
On the humble to arrogant spectrum--
But more than either, we should strive for truth,
And we should be confident in the self we've been given
And the self we continuously create.

Humility is just as untruthful as arrogance.
Overestimating and understating your abilities
Are two heads of the same lie.
I think the best way to see yourself
Is how you are, 

With a hope of what you can become.

If it were up to me, 

We'd all strive for that truth.

We'd strive for self-respect.
We'd strive to not just acknowledge our weaknesses,
But face them head on,

To discuss them freely.
Because you can point out your strengths without being arrogant,
And you can ask for help without being ashamed of who you are.