One thing I have learned during my life through my own experience is that being humble is not simply a virtue that one can set out to be, but rather it is a reality that one comes to accept. It is not something you have to pretend to be (as if you can fake it until you make it), you cannot fake humility, but it is something that one realizes through one's own limitations and weaknesses. You can simply believe too much of yourself and make up a story in your head, but that's just what it is, a story. And don't get me wrong I believe that one should always try to do one's best, but at the same time, you can give it your all and still fail. Or at least you seem to give it your all and not achieve it. It's not just having self-discipline, and willpower, and working hard, and all that. There really is something that is as if it escapes our control and is outside the sphere confined by human limitations. Or so it seems.
You may think you know a lot, or think you are very smart, but are you? And if you are, so what? Sometimes you think you're the smartest until you're wrong. And who, try as they might, can be exempt from failure? Because no matter how smart or how great you are, it's practically guaranteed that at some point you will fail. And I'm going to leave a slight margin for exceptions, but are there really any? Maybe there is something special about you, I won't doubt it, but life can humble you sometimes. And don't get me wrong, I hope you make it, but the one who pretends to be the best is not the best. And often if you don't know how to be last, then you don't know how to be first, and if you don't know how to fail and lose, then you may not know how to win.
You can try harder, so hard, very hard, with all your might, and sometimes, despite everything, you are humbled. The very word “humiliation” is related to the word “humility”. With being humbled. Humble is basically the one who can be humiliated. And there is a biblical saying that is something along the lines of whoever wants to be great among you must humble himself. And so you must be last to be first.
Sometimes I think of Socrates. The oracle of Delphi said he was the wisest man in Athens, what he said was that if he was wise indeed, it was because he knew that he knew nothing. That's something. And I am paraphrasing of course. But sometimes I think in today's world it's very easy to get caught in a lie. Technology makes us believe that we are so advanced and so great. It's as if it makes us believe that we know something. But what do we know? What do we really know? Many things that in the past were cold hard facts, today we say, with almost the same certainty, are untruthful.
Sometimes we know with incredible certainty something that is all too false. That is why I am not a fan of labeling things as “facts”. Most people believe they can determine and label as “facts” their particular dogma. No matter how picky you are about the definition of “facts” and how careful you are in choosing them, most of the time that certainty is just an illusion that we cling to. The universe is too big and the possibilities are too endless to be clinging to what our minds can grasp as “facts”. And I am not saying that there is no truth, because I believe in it, I am only saying that the certainty with which we proclaim it is a fantasy.
What do we know?
Sometimes being humble helps us. Everyone has enough “evidence” to think what they think. If you do a little research you will find that there is plenty of “evidence” to believe in just about anything. The skeptic believes he has all the certainty to be skeptical, but the believer with almost as much certainty and security believes the opposite. The truth is something that is simply more complex and has too many edges.
We probably don't know as much as we like to think we do.
So, humility is a reality that one comes to accept. And it is a virtue, a strength. It makes us realize our own fallibility and our own limitations, get to accept that lack of certainty, accept the failure and be more prepared for when it happens. It makes us more in touch with reality and helps us keep our feet on the ground. You just need to have a dose of self-knowledge. And if you don't know yourself, then what do we know?
At the same time, though, I think knowing yourself is a difficult and enduring task. Do we know ourselves? But you must not be deceived, to be humble is in part to know who you are.
But it is something we often do not discover until our own experience teaches it to us, until we have been wrong enough and until we are thoroughly familiar with defeat, at the bottom end - but without giving up! - and then becoming aware of our own weaknesses. We can become aware of our strengths as well, but we must definitively be aware of our shortcomings. Then, at that moment, we discover this hidden quality in our psyche, this humility, and then we are truly ready to shine. But only after we have fallen.
I have developed this belief that only those who have been at the bottom know how to be at the top, and that only those who have first learned to serve know how to command. Otherwise, you're not doing it right.
But I hope I'm not all over the place.
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