Chapter 14: That Feeling of Smallness

One of the most demoralizing things we know of is the habit of berating oneself. Some people are always doing this. They seem to delight in telling how little they amount to, and how insignificant they are in comparison with others.

The churches are largely responsible for this self-depreciation. How often we hear in prayer-meetings this constant berating of oneself. People call themselves miserable sinners, poor worms of the dust instead of the kings, the queens, the men, the women God made. Clergymen in pulpits and people in prayer-meetings often tell the Lord how insignificant they are. Instead of boldly claiming their birthright of nobility, of royal manhood and womanhood, they whine and apologize and crawl. Man was made erect that he might stand up, look up, look the world in the face without wincing. This acting the Uriah Heep before the Creator is despicable and demoralizing.

If the Bible teaches anything it bids man to look up, to claim his birthright. What would a father think of his son if he should come to him with a request in a humiliating spirit of self-depreciation? The father wants him to come with all his dignity and manhood intact.

This habit of self-depreciation is demoralizing to one's character. It destroys self-confidence, kills independence and makes a man vertebrateless.

Self-depreciation destroys that dignity, that beauty of poise and balance which characterize the true gentleman. Some people have a regular genius for self-effacement. They skulk round always trying to keep in the back seats or out of sight as much as possible wherever they go, but there is something in human nature which despises sneaking. The world loves the man who has the courage to stand erect, to think his own thoughts, to live his own life, and to call himself every inch a man.

"No man,'' says Emerson, "can be cheated out of an honorable career in life unless he cheats himself." You will not cheat yourself unless you cease to believe in yourself; a noble estimate of life and of oneself is a powerful projector of character. Do not start out in life with a contemptible estimate of yourself.

One reason you have failed to assert yourself is perhaps because you have been disgusted with nervy people who substituted cheek for ability, and you determined to assume a non-pretentious, humble air; but self-effacement never yet made a man, and never will. There is much difference between disagreeable, bragging conceit based upon cheap vanity or false pride, and real confidence based upon a knowledge of ability and honest conviction that we are capable of doing the thing we undertake.

Self-respect, a good opinion of your own personality, is the best insurance not only against vile, vicious tendencies, but also against making a wrong choice and against final failure. A man who thinks highly of himself will not stop to underhanded methods, to low, vile scheming. No matter what your calling, preserve your self-respect at all hazards; let your money go, let your property go, part with everything material, but hold to your self-respect.