From New York Times |
Weekend contemplation
“Don’t be so humble; you’re
not that great,” Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel, once told somebody
(whose humility was probably nothing more than obsequiousness which comes
easily to politicians). Humility is not a common virtue. Really great people
possess it because they are aware of their own limitations. One of the
requisites of greatness is an acute sense of self-awareness.
The oracle of
Delphi was once asked whether anyone was wiser than Socrates. The oracle asserted
that Socrates was the wisest. Socrates who was present at the scene refused to
acknowledge it and went on to do some research and find out wiser people. He
spoke to many wise people and learnt that they were not as wise as they
pretended to be. Socrates’s greatness lay in the fact that he acknowledged his
ignorance when he did not have the required knowledge while the others claimed
to know more than they really knew. Socrates possessed humility. Socrates was
great enough to have such humility.
Great people
can afford humility. Pride, the opposite of humility, is a self-defence
mechanism. Pride is a cover-up for our drawbacks and limitations and
insecurities. I was scared to accept my drawbacks and hence covered them up
behind a façade that supposedly looked magnificent. But the magnificence was my
imagination. To others the facade must have looked hideous which indeed it was.
Great people
don’t require such facades. They don’t have insecurities to conceal. They have
limitations and they accept them humbly. People like me who have more
limitations than skills and are not able to accept the limitations need
facades.
Today, as an
aging man who has gone through the umpteen tortures that life bestows on people
who put up hideous facades of self-defence, I have learnt humility or at least
the importance of it. It is not easy to learn that. The facades persist,
especially when you have to deal with those who were bent on hammering them
down for various reasons.
Greatness is
not a necessary prerequisite for humility. I have come across very many
ordinary people who possess that great virtue. Such people are aware of their
limitations and accept them as natural. They are not grumpy about destiny’s
partiality to them. They don’t keep grudges for having less brains, or not
being able to sing like the nightingale, or not being contemporary
Shakespeares. They know what they are and they are okay with it. They go about
doing their jobs without bothering much about themselves, in fact.
Yesh, that’s
the point. Rick Warren said it: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it
is thinking of yourself less.”
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteIndeed, those possessing true humility might be considered truly great - it's a trait a few in power would do well to cultivate and not just give lip service! YAM xx
It's becoming harder to find humility. Too much insecurity, perhaps, making people aggressively self-important.
DeleteWow. I love this post. Agree with every word you have said.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Delete