Column entry: The Virtue of Smallness, an Introduction
Column Description: Pride is the childish pursuit of making the world, our family, friends, colleagues, and strangers small so that we can become large and more important. In this column, I focus on pride’s opposite: humility. In contrast to pride, humility is being in right proportion with the universe. Humility is the childlike pursuit of choosing to become small, so the world, our family, our friends, and everyone can become large to us again. By choosing to become small, we can live in a joyful state of awe at the tremendous world around us. This will inspire our curiosity and wonder because we want to know more about this awesome world, son, daughter, friend, colleague, or stranger before us. Practicing the virtue of smallness leads to a heart of worship and adoration, love and gratitude, joy and contentment.
September 2025
I’ve tried to figure out a way to avoid starting my column this way, but my mind keeps telling me that this is the moment my journey began. Nearly 29 years ago, when I was 18 years old, I reached a point in my life where I felt so small and worthless that I didn’t feel like living any longer.
It was late at night. I was on my knees, looking down at the tool that would send me out of this world. The pain of the crushing smallness I was experiencing would end once and for all.
But then I looked up.
Many nights in the plains of Colorado are beautiful, but the sky appeared deeper and wider than I had ever seen it. The stars seemed brighter and more numerous. The moon seemed larger and more brilliant. I did not realize it then, but when I looked up, the smallness that had been swallowing me turned into a smallness that saved me.
Due to the emotional pain I was experiencing, I had not looked up and admired the stars in a long time. I was almost solely focused on the humiliation I felt from some of the adult guides I had in my life. Instead of building me up, they tore me down, focusing on my limitations and things they didn’t like about me. However, I responded in destructive ways that were intended to make myself feel better. I wanted to feel significant – larger – but I ended up making people I cared about feel smaller. As a result, the overall shame I was experiencing felt unbearable.
By looking up at the stars, the astonishment I experienced interrupted my feeling of hopelessness, and I was gifted a moment of self-forgetfulness. I knew there had to be a God behind all of this, and I believed he did not want me to take my life. In that moment, I became small, and God and His world became large to me again.
I will need to save more details for a later column, but the feeling of awe I experienced that night opened a door of hope and joy for me, but it was my mentors I met later who showed me how to walk through it.
The first mentor who made a lasting impact on my life was my first philosophy professor. I will never forget the day he told me, “You should be a philosophy tutor.” I looked behind me, because I was sure he was talking to someone else. But who else could he be talking to? We were the only ones left in the classroom. How could the smartest person I had ever met say this to me? Before this moment, I do not remember a teacher seeing potential in my intellectual abilities.
During my senior year in high school, at least five teachers and counselors sat me down for a one-on-one conversation and said the same thing to me: “Clint, it’s okay if you don’t go to college; it’s not for everyone.” I felt like these conversations confirmed what I already knew – I could not make it in college. I could hardly read, and the only A I earned in high school was in PE. So, I turned down athletic scholarships and started working instead.
I’m sure these teachers and counselors were doing what they thought was best for me, but it crushed me. They treated my challenges and limitations as a life sentence, and it made me feel small and inferior. So, when my first philosophy professor saw a future of potential and hope for me, it changed my life.
Other mentors along the way helped me see a future of hope that I was unable to see for myself, and I look forward to sharing their impact on my life as I journey through this column. All of them taught me that being humble includes elevating others around you, so they feel valued and dare to move forward with purpose.
In this column, I will explore how embracing humility allows us to live in a joyful state of awe at the tremendous world around us. I will argue that practicing the virtue of smallness (humility) is key to living rightly sized with God, His world, and the people around us.
As we move forward, here are some concepts we will explore together.
- Humility: possessing an honest assessment of oneself and one’s place in the world; an openness and interest in God, the world, and the people around you.
- Smallness: the habit of elevating others around you, so they feel large in value. Smallness also includes being rightly sized before God and His world.
- Pride: possessing an inflated view of oneself and one’s place in the world; a self-centered posture toward God, the world, and the people around you.
- Virtue of smallness: Cultivating the discipline of being rightly sized with God, His world, and His people to live in joyful awe and gratitude.
I’d like to end where I began—under the stars—with a small blessing I wrote for the road.
May you choose to become small
So, you can feel awestruck again.
By a child’s smile, a blade of grass, or a sky full of stars
May you shrink in self-importance
And elevate those around you.
May you follow the way of humility
And embrace your authentic self.
Small, yet filled with hope.
Limited, yet loved by Him
May your smallness bring you
Awe,
Wonder,
Gratitude,
Joy.
And may the world become large to you again.[1]
Notes
[1] Those who are familiar with G. K. Chesterton will see his influence on my thoughts with this blessing and in this column.