Justin Bieber’s Message to Billie Eilish is an Important Lesson to Remember In Your Self-Improvement Journey
The disconnect between success and humility is troubling.
Billie Eilish’s journey so far has been extraordinary.
From uploading her first song, Ocean Eyes, online when she was thirteen to winning 7 Grammy awards before turning twenty, her story has been truly exceptional.
However, long before the world knew Billie, she’s been in love with Justin Bieber. As she said on a radio talk show, she is completely obsessed with Justin. In the show, she played an old video of hers from when she was just eleven, where she mentions that she’s afraid that she'll not be able to love her future boyfriend like she loves Justin.
So you can imagine how overwhelming it was for her when she actually met Justin during Coachella. When she first saw him, she physically ran away from him, stood feet apart from him for a minute as she prepared herself before finally embracing him. And as she did, she sobbed in his arms.
After Billie reached back to her hotel, she received a stream of messages from Justin, the last of which is an important lesson for all of us.
It’s moments like tonight where I’m reminded what I mean to people. Your love for me touched my heart. You are so special, not for what you can do, but for who you are. Remember that. I am so impressed by your aura and presence. You carry a heavy calling. You are an idol to so many. I’m excited to watch you flourish. You are beyond special. Thank you for tonight. It meant just as much to me as it meant to you. I also want to let you know that it feels like yesterday I was 15 singing “One Time,” and now I’m 25, and that was 10 years ago. It flew by like a flash. Enjoy every minute of what you are experiencing. Embrace it all. Believe you are great, but not greater than anyone.
Believe you are great, but not greater than anyone.
It was mighty wise of Justin to say that to Billie. She needed to hear it. All of this fame and validation can easily inflate a teenager's ego to a size that we cannot comprehend. After all, fame can easily get to your head, to the point that you put yourself on a pedestal. And then, you lose perspective. You see others as inferiors and yourself superior.
But it’s not just Billie, or Justin, or other famous people who need to be aware of this message. The lesson is for anyone who’s on a self-improvement journey. Since we all grow at different speeds, it’s quite possible that you’re going to overtake some people around you. And when you do, it’s important to resist the tendency to gloat, not just out loud, but in your head as well.
Success and humility don’t go hand in hand, as well as they should. For instance, an article sharing techniques on how to be successful would get way more clicks than an article sharing techniques on being more humble. Nobody primarily wants to be humble. Yet, everyone wants success. Content on humility never goes viral. Content on success does.
And in that disconnect lies a big problem. We have a whole group of people achieving incredible things in life, yet they’re not exactly the most humble of all. And that delta, between success and humility, can lead people into believing that they’re better than others.
As a whole, this makes our society worse. This disconnect provides a nidus for the growth of endless toxic comparisons. We start looking down on people who are not necessarily slow but slower. We start seeing success as only a way to inflate our egos and not as a way to pursue happiness. We start focusing only on how to get ahead and forget to help the people who need it.
But you don’t really need to be better than others to be happy. As Justin conveyed to us — you can be great without worrying about being greater. And as far as comparisons go, the only ones that make sense are the ones you make between your present and your past. As Hemingway once said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
I know you’re chasing success. And that’s okay. I am too. But I think what I’m trying to say is that we need to chase humility, just as desperately as we chase success. If you take one step in the direction of success, take one in the direction of humility as well.
As illustrated above, for most of us, our humility lags behind our success. And that’s backward. Instead, we should strive to attain at least as much humility as the amount of success we gain. Maybe more.
Self-improvement is truly a wonderful journey. But it’s important that we don’t ever let any kind of growth get to our heads. We must have our feet on the ground, no matter how much we achieve. To that end, always remember Justin’s wise words — Believe that you are great, but not greater than anyone. Because without humility, growth loses its meaning. And you don’t want that.
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