Continuing on my graphic novel parade, I picked up 300 last time I was at the library. The stand the Spartans took never ceases to interest me, and Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire on the same topic is one of my all time faves.

The movie is accurate, frame by frame, to the novel. It’s really a matter of do you prefer still images of scantily clad figures or moving ones. Under those criteria, I put this book as one of the very few in my “The movie was better than the book” category. Though I do feel an obligation to mention that there is even less leather in the book on those already scantily clad figures, if you know what I mean.

The page of single most interest to me was when Leonidas speaks the word hubris, naming it as the fatal weakness of his opponent Xerxes. I had to google it to get the full meaning. A mostly unrelated matter made me google the word humility this morning. I found this article and really enjoyed it.

“We often confuse humility with timidity. Humility is not clothing ourselves in an attitude of self-abasement or self-denigration. Humility is all about maintaining our pride about who we are, about our achievements, about our worth – but without arrogance – it is the antithesis of hubris, that excessive, arrogant pride which often leads to the derailment of some corporate heroes, as it does with the downfall of the tragic hero in Greek drama. It’s about a quiet confidence without the need for a meretricious selling of our wares. It’s about being content to let others discover the layers of our talents without having to boast about them. It’s a lack of arrogance, not a lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit of achievement.”

In my heart, I’ve gone from quiet mouse to putting myself out there (and feeling terribly uncomfortable about it) to settling into what I am good at and enjoying the confidence I have in myself and others have in me. I thought, with my religious definition of humility in mind, that getting to this place in myself meant that I had lost humility. This article gave me a fuller appreciation and the ability to see this particular virtue not as a hinderance or a roadblock but as a key to all that lies beyond today.

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