Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less

A quotation from C.S. Lewis (author of Chronicles of Narnia fame), it sets me thinking. In my opinion humility is about treating someone with respect and grace no matter what your intellectual, moral or economic stature is. In a way it is a kind of calm confidence that you have in your self and you don't let yourself turn into a pigheaded person.

For the most part I would like to believe that humility is one of my virtues but as I re-read this quote, I wonder, if I am confusing humility with being polite. Lets separate people into 3 zones. Zone 1: Super familiar people, Zone 2: People met here and there at office or say strangers in the airplane, mall etc., Zone 3: Globally, say kids in Somalia.

With Zone 2 its the best, because its so easy to convince someone for short term :-). With Zone 1, time to time they would have seen signs of impatience and haughtiness but still I would thing it would average out to be on the positive side. For Zone 3, its an absolute zero for I am so involved in myself and the first two zones that I just don't seem to care about anyone outside of it.

In answer to the exact question "How good are you of placing others before yourself?"  I would say, I am doing just about ok here. I could do better with both the first and second part of the quote.

Man, this is a deep topic and all I can think of at this point is hitting the sack. Toodles!