Humility seems to be something that needs to be developed.
In that sense, it may not be very natural. Or, whatever the mitigating factors are, they seem to have contributed to it becoming unnatural and, therefore, in need of something to cause, at least the possibility, of humility.
We all know people that don’t seem very humble. How would we describe them? Self-centered? Prideful? Arrogant? Conceited? Of course, these are always other people…. So, theoretically then, how would we describe it when we sense a lack of humility in ourselves?
And, then, there is the person who truly IS humble. Often, those people barely register with us, because there is so little self-promotion involved. We find these people not only easier to work with, but also that we are drawn to them. Perhaps this is because they put us at ease. No posturing is required. We relax in their presence.
As we get to know humble people, we discover something they often seem to have in common — experience that has taught them something that they seem to value for the rest of their lives, even if they have to continue working at it. They’ve learned, often in painful ways, about things they don’t want to be like.
A recent circumstance in our community involved a person that few people would primarily describe as embodying traits of humility. The exposure involved engenders the question, why are certain people humble, while others are not. Personality certainly seems to make contributions to things like humility, but there also seems to be something else that circulates around our question of why.
What has captured a bit of my imagination is how entitlement contributes to a lack of humility. Humble people don’t seem characterized by a spirit of entitlement. So, what is the soil out of which the seeds of entitlement tend to grow? Some might include things like conditioning or specific circumstances from which one has reached certain conclusions about their relationship with others and the world.
I’m a bit hesitant to draw a hard and fast rule on this, but it also seems a bit conspicuous that a kind of relationship with power is often involved — for both the humble and the not-so-humble. And, in our economies, power is often connected in one way or another to money. In other words, the more money one has, the easier it seems to be powerful. Whether that is attributed by others or claimed by oneself, a number of dots connect a perceivable pattern between money and humility. But, there does seem to be something about money that makes us think we deserve it (especially when characterized by concluding we’ve earned it). Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule. And, most certainly, there are many people who have no money (or power), who would also not be characterized by humility, .
But, an intriguing thought to me is how much humility is more than a state of mind or spirit and includes the patterns in choices we make about how we live. Whether money and power are involved or not, choices I make seem to keep me in a position to be aware of my need for humility. Conversely, then — what patterns and choices move me away from that awareness...even from humility itself?
I think the question I’m asking is somewhat connected to this; do I have to choose to live simply enough that my awareness, my dependency on others and the dynamics of life, remains intact? Does the complexity I so often opt for (or, simply end up in) lead me away from awareness and, therefore, humility?
This feels far easier to answer for...someone else, than it is for myself. But, is it?
At the very least, humility seems to be something that is catalyzed by what we learnlearn over the course of lives, and that we need to consciously work at, often in the simple choices that we make as we go about the way we live.
