It’s not GREAT to say it, but it’s the end of Humility Week at the NDD.
Quote by Kanye West
Dear Mr. West,
Yes, that is exactly what America wants you to do.
It is confusing, I know. You get messages from every self-help guru of the last 100 years to excel, to be great. You are shown images, videos, books and TV showing people being great. You are told stories of people overcoming incredible odds to become great. You are encouraged to be great by your mother, by your father. Your teachers tell you you can be great.
You go out into the world and pursue your dream. Those capable of influencing that dream; those who could hire you, fire you, produce you, promote you, direct you, invest in you, pay you – they all encourage you to be great. They all praise you when you are great. The people following you; your fans, critics, fellow artists, they all say you are great. You become one of those people who are used as an example of someone who overcame to become great. You are a poster child for becoming great.
Then you make the mistake. Then you do the worst thing you could possibly do. Then you say you are great.
Why can’t you say that? Didn’t the entire world do everything in its power every step of the way in your life to tell you that you could be great and praise you when you did become great? How could it then be wrong to say you are great?
Here’s why: Because in traditional, historic America the most important aspect of being great is being humble. The final proof of greatness is in the great person not being aware of it. Just as the final proof someone is a hero is when they say ‘I am not a hero’. Just as the worst thing a beautiful woman can ever say is ‘I am beautiful’.
Where did this come from? Look no further than the pew. While in every other aspect of American culture we are told to be great, in church we are told we can never be great. We can’t be great because we are fallen, because we sinned, because we have evil in us. We can aspire to be better people, but it is not approved to go too far. Going too far means you have pride. Pride goeth before the fall. If you have pride in yourself you do not understand your true nature. You do not recognize that you are a fallen, debased creature unable to redeem yourself. Trying to be great means you are trying to do that. SAYING you are great means you think you did it, and on your own. And doing it on your own of course means you do not need God. And there is no worse sin than thinking that.
Truth? I think it has often been gigantic, manipulative untruth that has been told in the sanctuary. I think arguments about pride and humility and being fallen have been used as a weapon to keep people, genders, classes and races in their ‘proper’ place. And it has been successful in doing so. I am always happy when I see that element be exposed for the evil it is.
But here is another truth. There is something to be said for understanding self. And understanding self, TRULY understanding self, means you know that you have SOME greatness in you and you have SOME work still do to. It means you understand that you did not achieve this greatness on your own, and that you need to acknowledge and give recognition to those who have helped you on your way. It means you know that it can be taken away from you.
But most of all, over all other things, you should know that no matter how great you become in the eyes of the world seeing you at a distance, it is how you display greatness to those right in front of you that matters most. It is how you love your child, your wife, your husband, your parent. It is how you minister and care to those who depend on you, those who mentor you, those who need you.
When you do that, when you are that, then you won’t be thinking about telling the world you are great. You will just be. And you will be happy and humble when you find others telling the world that you are instead you having to tell the world yourself.
I fancy myself a pretty good thinker. But considering almost all my napkin drawings start with a quote that I myself did not make up, it would be disingenuous of me to say I come up with nothing but original ideas.
However, I do like to think I am unique thinker. A unique thinker isn’t someone who thinks up something out of the blue. Instead it is someone who takes these ideas from others and combines them, mixes them, bakes them into a uniquely stated idea. Not necessarily a new idea, but an idea that has been thought through by one unique individual and come out the other side with something no one else can give it, the perspective and expression of that one person.
I think a lot of young people who are unformed in their own identity don’t understand what this means. I see it all the time on reality TV shows like American Idol. The judges say to the young person, ‘you have to just be yourself’ or ‘you have to put your own spin on it’ or ‘you just need to find your own voice’. And the least mature of the singers look blankly back at the judges, having no idea what it is they are talking about. They don’t know yet how to take another idea, (another song in this case) and make it their own because there is no ‘own’ there yet. They are doing their best to imitate a great singer but they don’t know yet how to become a great singer themselves.
The originality of your ideas isn’t what you should have pride in. It is what should endow you with humility. How you take what is given to you from the outside and transform it into something uniquely yours, THAT is what you can have true pride in.
Drawing by Marty Coleman, who reads in bed.
Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who also read in bed.
It’s humbling to think it’s already day #3 of Humility Week at the NDD!
It is paradoxical that those who are most self-conscious, seemingly the most insecure and with the most damaged ego and self-esteem, are often the ones who are thinking about themselves the most. They are worried about what others think of them. They are worried about being disapproved of. They are concerned they aren’t lovable. They are thinking a lot about themselves, perhaps in a skewed, inaccurate way, but still they are thinking about self. The more someone does that the less they think about others, right?
The question then becomes, who is the bigger egotist, the one who is supremely confident or the one who may not be at all confident but is thinking about themselves all the time?
Whatever the case, a smart reading of humility would include this idea; that when you aren’t thinking about yourself you are able to think about others and act on helping them, nurturing them, protecting them, feeding them.
Humility is more about other-awareness than self-awareness.
By the way, I like this quote so much I have used it twice. The first time was with a drawing of a woman looking in a hand mirror while a person in the background helped a man who had fallen out of a wheelchair get back in it. The drawing was pretty lousy actually.
If it pleases you, today I am serving up napkin #2 of Humility Week.
A lot of people don’t mind serving, but they hate the idea of being a servant. It harkens back to days of slavery, indentured servitude and being in an inferior position where you are taken advantage of.
But the funny thing about really truly being a servant to another is that if you are doing it right you aren’t thinking about yourself. You aren’t thinking it’s unfair to you. You aren’t thinking someone is acting superior to you. You aren’t thinking about you at all. You are thinking about how to serve the other person. If they are a bit rude, so be it. If they are a bit thoughtless, so be it. They aren’t there to stroke your ego. They are there because they need, want or are paying for you to serve them in some way.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying a person in a serving role should be abused. I am just saying that as a servant you will come across all sorts of behaviors and your primary response is not to judge whether you like that particular behavior or not. Your response is to do the best you can in serving that person. Obviously we have our limits and people who abuse should be stopped. But that is a separate issue from going into a serving situation with the right mindset and the right heart.
The humility of serving does not equal humiliation.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, a waiter on and off for 28 years, 1971 – 1999.
I was inspired by an online threaded conversation with a friend this morning to do a series on humility and confidence. It’s a hard balance for many.
Here is what she wrote. “Gah…why am I so jealous of those girls who can call themselves gorgeous (whether they are or aren’t) while walking into every room like they own it and everything and everyone in it (whether they actually do or don’t)?”
What are your thoughts in response?
Drawing by Marty Coleman, who has the same stuff in him.
Quote by Nicholai Velimirovic, 1881-1956, Serbian Orthodox bishop
I wrote this quote to my daughters in response to seeing so much false (and useless) humility within the church. So many seem to feel the necessity to condemn themselves due to the ‘original sin’ idea. They are afraid of appearing prideful if they say they like themselves, or are proud of themselves and so they go the opposite direction and say they aren’t the ones behind any success, it’s Jesus or God that did it, or that they still have so many issues, etc. that any success they have isn’t really worth bragging about.
I love that Spurgeon (a christian writer of old) says it in all its simplicity. Know yourself and be honest about yourself and you will have humility. That includes being courageous enough to state your talents and skills and accomplishments. They are asreal as your faults.
“Humility is to make the right estimate of one’s self.” – Charles Spurgeon
