Golda Meir gave the Ego a slap in the face when she said:
Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.
Humility has its roots in concepts of lowliness, lack of self-assertiveness and of low rank or standing. Fascinatingly, what I’ve also discovered in my research of the word ‘humble’ is that it is a derivative of the word ‘humus’, referring to the earth. I’ll talk about this shortly but first…
When you hear or use the word ‘humble’, what do you understand and mean by it?
Is there a sense of inferiority? Of lowliness in comparison to someone or something else (eg God, the Universe)? Or perhaps you use it to express some form of appreciation for someone or something?
For many people, the word ‘humble’ expresses an appreciation for someone or something that they perceive to be better than them.
When we are urged or reprimanded to be humble, we’re being told that we shouldn’t think of ourselves as big and grand and so complete or all-knowing that there is nothing more that we can learn or improve on.
Sometimes we affectionately and appreciatively describe our living legends, heroes and celebrities as ‘humble’ people. What we wish to communicate is that, despite their many laudable accomplishments, they have remained grounded, their feet have remained well and truly planted in the ground, in the earth, in the ‘humus’ of their being. This, for me, is the most meaningful and useful use of the word ‘humble’.
While it may have been easy and tempting for such ‘exceptional’ people to take off into some rarefied dimension clearly removed from the rest of humankind, they have chosen to stay grounded, to remain in the earth, the ‘humus’ or ‘humility’ of their being.
Now, our learned bias makes us think of humus as lowly, as the ultimate state of degradation. And yet, how could anything grow without it? It provides one of the conditions for the growth of plant life and all of life contributes to and makes up what we call ‘humus’.
So, if being humble means staying grounded, having your feet firmly planted in the rich, nourishing earthiness of the humus of your being, then being humble is a wonderful and necessary thing.
But if it means encouraging yourself to think that you are less than another, that you can never and shouldn’t even aspire to the greatness and grandeur and capabilities of your innate potential, that’s certainly not the kind of humility I am interested in.
You see, I believe that those heroes who really know humility know that they are no different to you and I insofar as we are all of the same source and have access to the same limitless potential of that one source.
And while these amazing human beings acknowledge that their trajectory in life has been (vastly) different to ours in some ways, having responded to life experiences differently, having made different choices and having set different goals, they don’t usually attribute this difference to any special quality of their personality. Rather, they attribute it to that inner knowing, that inner wisdom, that inner presence that they were willing to listen to and be guided by. It is that aspect of God within us that takes the form of ‘genius’ (Latin) or ‘daemon’ (Greek) as James Hillman writes about it. We might refer to it as that ‘inner voice’ or ‘intuition’.
(By the way, I’m not suggesting that these various words mean exactly the same thing but they do point us in the general direction of this aspect of our reality)
The following quotes shine a light on the need for each of us to listen to our ‘genius’, our ‘daemon’, or calling.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition – Steve Jobs
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves – Carl Jung
Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness – Allen Ginsberg
…that I had a purpose, that I knew that there was something greater that I came here to do, that I signed up for something other than to just fit in, to go along, to follow somebody else’s rules. Most of us don’t have the freedom to allow ourselves to listen to those internal callings – Wayne Dyer referring to Bronnie Ware’s The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
I began with what I consider a slap on the face of the Ego by Golda Meir – Don’t be so humble, you are not that great.
Humility, if it means being less than another, is not a quality of the mind that is aware of its oneness with, and origin within God/Love/Life.
We are each capable of expressing the potential of God, of Love of Life from which we spring in our own unique way. In fact, this is our calling. So, let’s not get into the kind of thinking that suggests that you are better than me or that I am less worthy than you.
No creature of God is inferior or superior to another. Humility, if it means being less than another, is not a quality of the mind that is aware of its oneness with, and origin within God/Love/Life.
I’ll finish with another quote from Golda Meir in which she points to the greatness (or God) within us that seeks to be expressed:
Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement – Golda Meir
And a final thought from me on this subject:
Humility is not some conventional notion of modesty. Life is flush with grandeur, magnificence and limitless creative potential. You, as an embodiment of Life are here to express all of it, no less. Humility then is your total awareness that it is NOT you – this personal, historical you – that is ‘doing’ greatness, grandeur, wonderfulness…Rather, it is Life/Love/God/ expressing through, in and as you that is ‘doing’ everything. Give credit, if you must, to that only and encourage others to do the same. Or better yet, just appreciate often and fully.
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