The Golden Coin - MULTIPLYING - Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary

Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part III. MULTIPLYING

Chapter 31. The Golden Coin

A friend recently asked me this question:

How can we give our children the confidence they need to survive on earth and still encourage the humility that is pleasing to God?

My little brain’s been flipping this over and over like a pancake that won’t cook through. But I haven’t considered it in terms of parenting. Usually when someone asks me a question about parenting, I switch it into a question about grown-ups. How do I encourage my child to be kinder to others? becomes, How do I become kinder to others? After reading the sixteenth parenting book that contradicted the first fifteen, I quit trying to become a better parent and decided to try becoming a better person.

✵ ✵ ✵

We usually think of confidence and humility as character traits. She’s so confident. He’s so humble. But these character traits are easy to fake. Insecure people hide it by boasting. Prideful people hide behind false humility. It seems the more insecure a person is, the more likely she is to behave confidently. And vice versa. Tricky.

Then there are people like me who just get the two constantly mixed up. Like when I write an essay about humility and then spend the rest of the day wondering whether it might actually be the best humility essay ever written by anyone in the history of the world. The character trait I am most proud of is my humility. I am so humble, it’s not even funny. Seriously, just don’t try to out-humble me. I will wreck your teeny little humility with my HUGE HUMILITY.

Even though I feel like a lost cause in regard to this confidence/humility issue, I do think it’s an important thing to explore. Because if we are humble without confidence, we miss the opportunity to become what we want to be when we grow up. And if we are confident without humility, we miss out on becoming who we want to be when we grow up.

I think about it all the time in terms of my writing. Spilling myself out like this, is it an act of humility or confidence? I share my faults and flaws, which seems humble—but doesn’t the fact that I assume that others will care enough to read and maybe even find my flaws charming betray the confidence behind my humility? Writing, painting, acting, creating, living out loud: Are they acts of humility or confidence?

Yes. They’re both. That’s what I’ve decided. Confidence and humility are two sides of the same coin. They are character traits that stem from the two beliefs I hold most dear. I think most of our character traits are simply manifestations of what we believe to be true.

I am confident because I believe that I am a child of God. I am humble because I believe that everyone else is too.

They go hand in hand. They’ve got to.

If I am humble but lack confidence, it is because I haven’t accepted that there is a divine spark inside me. It means that I don’t believe in the miracle that I was made by God for a purpose all my own, and so I am worthy of the space that I occupy on this earth. And that as a child of God, no one deserves more respect, joy, or peace than I. As a child of God, I have the right to speak, to feel, to think, and to believe what I believe. Those dreams in my heart, those ideas in my head, they are real and they have a divine origin, and so they are worth exploring. Just because I am a child of God. And thankfully, there is nothing I can add to that title to make it more impressive. There is also nothing I can do to lose that title. I am confident not because I am pretty or smart or athletic or talented or kind. Those things change and can be given and taken. I am confident simply because I am a child of God.

That is why I am confident enough to write honestly. Not because I am a good writer. There will always be somebody better. I rely on the belief that I am a child of God, and as such, I have a right to speak my mind with love. This writing thing, it’s one of my dreams. And I act on my dreams because I believe that God is not just with me but in me. I believe that he is the creator of my dreams. So it follows that when I act on them, magical things will happen. How could they not? Being a child of God is a free pass to be brave and bold and take great risks and spin around in circles with joy. If and when I fall, who cares? He will always be there to pick me up. That’s his job. He’s my Father. So if I seem noncompetitive, if I seem as if I don’t care if I’m the “best” parent or housekeeper or dresser or whathaveyou, it’s not because I don’t care about being important. It’s because I believe I am the most important thing on earth. Why would I care about competing in any other category when I am already a child of God? Why would I argue over a penny when I have already won the lottery?

And.

If I am confident but not humble, it is because I have not fully accepted that everyone has won the lottery. Because everyone has the same amount of God in her. If I am in the habit of turning my back on others, it is because I haven’t learned that God approaches us in the disguise of other people. If I am confident but not humble, my mind is closed. If my mind is closed, my heart is closed. A closed heart is so sad. It is the end. A heart cannot grow any larger if it decides to let no more God in. There is always room for more. A heart expands exactly as much as her owner allows.

Humility is how I survive praise and criticism of my writing, ideas, and beliefs. Because I remember that neither praise nor criticism is really about me. We are all just trying to find the truth. So I try to see different points of view not as reasons to step back further into my corner, but as opportunites to take baby steps toward the middle of the ring—if for no other reason than to see my opponent a little closer. That perspective change is usually all it takes to remember that I have no opponents other than my pride.

I am a child of God, and so is everyone else. We are all on the same side. And so in each new person, I see an invitation to know a new side of God. There are as many sides of him as there are people walking the earth. I think that’s why he keeps making people. He’s not done telling us about himself yet. So I remember that each person I meet or hear from, even if she’s not yet treating me the way I’d like to be treated, is the most important thing on earth. There is no hierarchy of importance, of brilliance. We are each infinity important. More brilliant than the sun. Because each of us is a child of God. So we better recognize.

Those are the two sides of the golden coin I’d like each of my children to keep in her pocket forever:

Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too.