The humbleness to know yourself and the pride to know your worth.

We are constantly told by our coaches, our parents, our teachers, our teammates, sideliners watching on, and even the great stars and athletes we see on TV to “STAY HUMBLE”.

To humble ourselves. 

To humble our character.

To humble our magnitude as an athlete who's given their life to a sport that they love, sacrificing who knows what in their lives, closing off who knows how many doors to take this one path and bet on it, shutting away how many voices, turning down how many parties, doing how much work on and off the field, seeing your family only how many times in a year, losing confidence so many times in a season, losing your love for this sport, but no matter how much you lost, the one thing you wouldn’t lose is this. 

And no matter how many doors you shut, the one door that you wouldn’t shut is this

And no matter how many voices you become deaf to, the only voice you continue to listen to is this.

And no matter how much you have to sacrifice, no matter how much you have to lose, the one thing you won’t ever dream of losing, or sacrificing, is this. 

So yeah, give me a damn good reason why we should humble ourselves in front of a crowd of people who have no idea, not a damn idea, of  what we had to go through to even get to this point, to even have the pride to play our sport in front of you? Why should in the world should we belittle ourselves facing a crowd who never had to sacrifice so much in their life, who never had to shut away voices, who never had to work hard like us, who never had to succumb to pressure, who were never overlooked by coaches, who never lost their love for what they are doing, who never closed away doors in their life? THEY HAVE NO IDEA!

To humble yourself. 

But they do. Everyone does. Perhaps everyone only goes through so much in their lives, perhaps some people do have it easier than others, and perhaps some people see you the same way as you see them. 

Some people see you the same way you see them.

And the way you take that phrase is a really great way to reflect where you are in your humble character. 

To stay humble.

But if there is one thing I want you to take from this chapter, this is not it. We all know we have to stay humble. We all know that. 

Being humble is too often perceived as solely the absence of pride. I would argue it means a lot more than that. In fact, the absence of pride itself is just as harmful as pride. When we strip ourselves of pride, we strip ourselves of confidence, we strip ourselves of meaning. Diffidence is not humbleness. Meekness is not humbleness. Self-abasement is not humbleness. Rather, I would argue that the highest form of humility is introspection. 

So stay humble, but know what you’re worth.