A healthy understanding of who we are and how others see us is a blessing. Consider these two quotes:
“Self-doobt isna really so bad a thing, laddie,” said Duncan with a chuckle. “‘Tis what the Creator gives t’ keep us humble. So long as it doesna cripple ye an’ make ye so ye canna do a thing, a little self-doobt can du ye guid. ‘Tis the seasoning o’ a gracious soul to keep it from thinkin’ highly o’ itself.”
“. . . The Lord’s tellin’ a different tale w’ each o’ us. But the curse o’ the human lot is either thinkin’ too much or too little o’oorsel’s. There’s self-doobt and there’s pride-an’ everyone’s got one or the other. Likely enough, everyone’s got a heap o’ both! But ’tis usually one or the other that’s the inner cross o’ character we each must bear till Lord’s work in us is dune. Speakin’ fer myself, I’d rather walk wi’ the heavier dose o’ the doobt than the pride. ‘Tis perhaps a wee harder t’ bear up under. But the one grows the fruit of Galatians Five in us if we let him have his way, but the other’s a sure ruin o’ character if we don’t. . . “
“Dinna ye fret, laddie,” said Duncan at length. “Ye’re a man. An’ ye’re a man that’s walkin’ down the right road wi’ yer face held t’ the light. Ye’re just a mite more openhearted than most aboot the struggles ye got inside. But all men’se got ’em. All the men in yer Parliament, an’ yer prime minister-they’re all fightin’ the same battles. ‘Tis jist that most never let anither see ’em. An’ there’s some that winna look them square in the eye themsel’s. Ye’re more a man, Andrew my lad, fer facin’ yer doobts an’ trying t’ win through them, not less.”
– Michael Phillips in Caledonia: Legend of the Celtic Stone, Bethany House Publishers, 1999, p. 396.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!
– Robert Burns in “To A Louse.”