For most of my life, I thought humility meant being modest.
Don’t brag.
Don’t draw attention to yourself.
Play it down.
But something about that never made sense to me.
If someone is a gifted pianist, shouldn’t they play?
If someone is brilliant, shouldn’t they use their brilliance?
Why would God give someone a gift only for them to hide it?
That version of humility always felt like spiritual shrinking.
And shrinking never seemed like something God would want.
The Version of Humility I Was Taught
Eventually someone explained humility to me like this:
“You’re not better than anyone else.”
That made more sense.
But if I’m honest, I still struggled with it.
Because when I looked around at the world, it seemed obvious that some people had a better grasp on life than others.
Someone who works hard, keeps their commitments, and tries to contribute to the world seems… different from someone who repeatedly makes destructive choices.
I didn’t believe my soul was worth more than a murderer’s.
But I definitely believed I was better at life.
That doesn’t sound humble.
But it felt logical.
The Missing Piece
What I eventually realized is that almost all of us are trying to be spiritual while still identifying completely with the ego.
And that’s where everything gets tangled.
Modern culture teaches us that our thoughts are who we are.
Our fears.
Our opinions.
Our reactions.
Our logic.
But if you watch your thoughts carefully, you notice you are actually a number of different perceptions.
They change constantly.
Sometimes I think things because I’m tired.
Sometimes because I’m angry.
Sometimes because my ego feels threatened.
And hours later I look back and think:
Why did I react like that?
If my thoughts can change like the wind… then they can’t actually be me.
So what am I?
Spirit Wearing a Human Body
The closest, most resonating explanation I’ve found is simple:
We are spirit.
A droplet of God.
Not the whole ocean but still made of the same water.
And that droplet currently happens to be living inside a human body.
The body has systems designed to help us survive.
The immune system protects us from disease.
The nervous system alerts us to danger.
And the ego?
The ego evolved to keep us alive.
The caveman who feared the rustling bush and ran from the possible lion had a much better chance of surviving than the caveman who ignored it.
Fear kept us alive.
The ego is essentially a survival mechanism.
Even though we don’t have many lions after us, the nervous system can still respond in exactly the same way if we’re not conscious of it. The real problem is that most of us have come to believe we are the ego itself.
The Hamster Wheel
When we believe we are the ego, we live inside fear.
We chase approval.
We defend ourselves.
We compare ourselves to others.
We run endless mental loops trying to control life.
It’s like living on a hamster wheel powered by anxiety.
And because everyone around us is doing the same thing, we assume this is just what being human feels like.
But there are moments when the wheel stops.
For example, I’ve noticed an interesting antidote when I’m angry with my husband.
I can be absolutely furious about something small ~ like him forgetting to take out the trash.
But if I pause and help someone else with their problem ~ truly listen to them, offer kindness, help them think through their situation ~ something shifts.
When I return to my original anger, it suddenly looks… different.
I can still see my point.
But the intensity is gone.
The ego has quieted down long enough for clarity to return.
The Real Meaning of Humility
This is when humility started making sense.
Humility isn’t pretending you’re small.
It isn’t hiding your gifts.
It isn’t calling yourself “just human.”
Humility is remembering who you actually are.
You are spirit.
And if that’s true…
So is everyone else.
The person in jail.
The person sleeping on the street.
The person making decisions you would never make.
They are spirit too.
A perfect spark of the same divine source — navigating a very imperfect human body with limited information, wounds, conditioning, and blind spots.
Their journey looks different from mine.
But it isn’t lower.
Just different.
There Is No Spiritual Hierarchy
From this perspective, the idea that I know what’s best for someone else becomes a little laughable.
How could I possibly know the path another soul needs to walk?
Accountability still exists.
Consequences still exist.
Sometimes helping someone means compassion.
Sometimes helping someone means boundaries.
Sometimes helping someone means letting life teach them through hardship.
But underneath it all there is no hierarchy.
Just a world full of souls trying to remember who they are.
As Ram Dass once said:
“We’re all just walking each other home.”
Why Humility Is So Hard to Understand
Humility becomes confusing when we believe we are the ego.
Because from the ego’s perspective, admitting equality feels like losing status or getting something you don’t deserve.
But from the perspective of spirit, humility feels completely natural.
When you see everyone as another expression of the same divine source:
Taking things personally becomes almost silly.
My hurt feelings start to look… adorable.
The ego is just a little survival mechanism trying to protect itself.
It deserves kindness, not total obedience.
Humility Reframed
Humility doesn’t mean you are “only human.”
Humility means remembering something even more radical:
You are spirit.
And so is everyone else.
We are all perfect expressions of the same infinite source — trying to navigate a temporary human experience with limited tools and incomplete understanding.
When you see the world that way, humility stops being something you try to practice.
It simply becomes the most obvious truth there is.
So, maybe humility isn’t about shrinking ourselves after all.
Maybe humility is remembering that every person we meet — the successful, the struggling, the wise, the lost — is another spark of the same infinite source trying to navigate the strange and beautiful experience of being human.
And when we remember that, something inside us softens.
Competition disappears. Judgment loosens its grip.
And suddenly the world feels less like a battlefield and more like what it might have been all along:
a group of souls quietly helping each other find their way home.
Amy Dinaburg, Philosopher, Retired ER Nurse
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humility, ego, spirituality, consciousness, intuition, self-awareness, Ram Dass, spiritual growth, human experience, divine source, emotional healing, mindfulness, awareness, philosophy, perspective shift
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