Devotion

There is a paradox here that wisdom reveals: you do not achieve honor by pursuing it. You achieve it by pursuing humility. The person who is trying desperately to be impressive, to be seen, to be honored, typically appears small. The person who is genuinely humble—secure in who they are, not needing to prove themselves—appears large. Honor naturally attaches to such a person because people recognize that they are not playing a game. The path upward starts by going down—by being willing to be small, to admit you do not know everything, to serve others without keeping score. This seems backward to the world, which teaches that honor comes to the aggressive, the self-promoting, the impressive. But wisdom says otherwise: humility comes first, honor follows.