A Word That Haunts My Grade (So Far): Humility

Humility: The quality or condition of being humble; modest sense of one's own importance, rank etc.

Based on the definition, the attribute of humility straddles two of my blog series and presents a few dilemmas.

a.) If used in "My Grade (So Far)" and I give myself an "A", doesn't being so immodest automatically contradict that grade? So for now I'll go with a modest (aka humble) "C" without saying I'm being clever doing so - too immodest.

b.) But humility is also a good candidate for word #8 in "Words That Can Haunt Me". I've used that series infrequently because any word geek who claims to be haunted by a lot of words is a bit suspect, no? Still, in my experience, authentic humility is hard to come by and even harder to attain. False humility is disingenuous; lack of humility is obnoxious. Where is the middle ground? Isn't middle ground a "C"? See what I mean about a haunting dilemma?

So, consider this a two-for-one deal. And tell me about your relationship to this tricky word.