But I see “humble” being used by people when they clearly mean “proud”
Last time I wrote a get-it-off-my-chest post about how I think the role of dopamine is often referred to in a misleading way. While I’m in this get-it-off-my-chest mood, let me add one other favorite (meaning a favorite thing to get mad at): people who say “I feel humble” when they really mean “I feel proud.”
There doesn’t seem to be ambiguity about what being proud means. It means feeling good about oneself because of something we’ve done, or about someone else whom we’re close to and/or love, because of something they’ve done.
It is also used in a negative way, like when we imply that we think someone feels proud, but unjustifiably (they seem arrogant), or acting as if they’re superior when we don’t think they are (too proud to admit a mistake). But both of those aren’t really definitions of being proud, they’re more like our noticing a feeling of pride that’s unfounded.
“Humble” is the opposite. It means that we don’t think our achievements are particularly good. So we’re modest or even self-deprecating (in a sincere way, rather than pretending). Which leads to the expression “to humble someone,” meaning we want to make them feel modest when we think they’re too big for their boots (unjustifiably proud of themselves, in fact!).
The aspect that bothers me is when people say things like “It makes me feel so humble” when they really mean “It makes me feel so proud.” They want to appear modest (hence they use “humble”) while really being proud. Fortunately I’ve also come across the word “humblebragging,” which I like very much, because it captures that hypocrisy: people are really bragging, but want to appear modest.
Of course, you can still be modest while inwardly feeling proud about something – but that’s different from humblebragging.
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I have written about retirement planning before and some of that material also relates to topics or issues that are being discussed here. Where relevant I draw on material from three sources: The Retirement Plan Solution (co-authored with Bob Collie and Matt Smith, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009), my foreword to Someday Rich (by Timothy Noonan and Matt Smith, also published by Wiley, 2012), and my occasional column The Art of Investment in the FT Money supplement of The Financial Times, published in the UK. I am grateful to the other authors and to The Financial Times for permission to use the material here.