A Lesson about Humility
Humility
Photo by 19melissa68
When you start to think you have it licked, when you rise from humility to cocky self-assurance, there is always another lesson coming down the road to teach you the lesson of humility once again.
When the lesson is truly learned you no longer need the lesson.
Case In Point:
Quite pleased with my progress in exercising patience, I hardly noticed yesterday when I cursed my new jacket because the zipper didn’t work. After several attempts I gave up in disgust. I am afraid to say I used some choice words to describe this items usefulness.
Instead I grabbed an old stand by and went out to brave the elements.
This morning I needed something more professional. I picked up the discarded coat and shrugged. I put in on, dashed to the car and hopped down to catch the commuter train into Vancouver.
At 7 a.m. in the freezing cold, with a brusque wind blowing I stepped out of my car. Immediately I noticed that I had put my coat on inside out—first lesson in humility.
To avoid looking the fool, I stopped in the parking lot, took off my jacket in the bitter breeze and reversed it. Because I knew it wouldn’t zip up I gathered it together in one hand as I scurried to pay for my parking, climb the stairs that takes you up over the railroad tracks and back down where you pay your fare. Trying to keep my jacket closed, use my debit card, and not drop my computer bag, must have been a good show for any spectators.
With my ticket in my freezing hands and the train not in sight, I finally decided I’d really had to find a way to do up my jacket.
I started to zip it up again, when I saw my error from yesterday. I had been trying to zip the outside zip on the inside liner zip—my second lesson in humility. Duh!
A little more patience yesterday could have saved me all the hassle this morning.
With my coat zipped up I began to feel a little more human again.
Lessons Learned:
1. I still have quite away to go on this patience thing.
2. Patience isn’t a practice it’s a state of mind.
I guess because I “got” the lesson, I also received this gift, a little later, as the train pulled out of the station.
Looking at the world through the window of the moving train gave me a different perspective on the world.
I realized:
No one is looking at the world from quite the same angle that I am. This view is for me, a very precious and unique gift shared with me alone and no one else.
The same is true of you. Appreciate you view.
Nick
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Tags: Humility, insights, lessons, patience, self development
Wow! What an amazing series of events, thoughts and outcomes. That was such a fast read I feel breathless and filled with so many emotions. I felt such tender kindness toward this fellow human being (you) who was honestly telling us about things that we all experience. And you told it SO humbly and yet honestly. Then I couldn’t help but laugh out loud over parts of this. You are so warmly funny. The jacket inside out REALLY got me. I laughed right out loud. What a gem! So human. And then I kept picturing you trying to keep everything in hand while you kept your jacket closed. I could just SEE you. And then the realizations of why it hadn’t worked the day before. Made me sigh and know THAT feeling and experience. BUT THEN….when you wrote:
“No one is looking at the world from quite the same angle that I am. This view is for me, a very precious and unique gift shared with me alone and no one else.”
Tears flooded my eyes. This is SO beautiful. This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read. So simple, so sweet and so pure. It is something I won’t forget when I look out at the world onto my own special view. I forget this. You gave me a gift. Thank you. Robin
Hi Robin,
Thank you again for your wonderful comments. I did laugh myself when I related the story to a friend. I find it amazing that some of these words pop out of nowhere, to manifest if you will. I can’t tell you how many times I have taken that train and never had that thought, but I think because I had just endured a lesson in humility, I was humbled enough to receive the message.
All things are link, all we have to do is pay attention.
Nick