Humility is understanding that we’re in this together

Last week, I took on the subject of humility, mostly by railing against what humility is not. I said humility is not pretending to be unaware of one’s strengths and talents, nor is it restraining those same talents just so insecure people can feel less threatened.

A friend wrote and said: “OK, smarty pants. Then what is humility?”

It’s a fair question. Having shot down an argument I think is bogus, it seems only fair to try my hand at a working definition.

But defining humility is, for me, akin to defining love. A core definition eludes me. Rather, I end up delineating attributes and attitudes that may point to humility’s presence.

Humility can be recognized by our commitment to mutuality. I think of mutuality as a chosen world view. An adopted attitude. Humility offers a median equanimity into the world. As I live my life, humility demands that I remain conscious of the fact that other people are living theirs. I belong on this planet no more and no less than other people belong. Mutuality means surrendering the fantasy that I am special, that I deserve to be afforded certain privileges just because it’s me.

My father pounded this lesson when teaching me to drive, though he didn’t use the word “humility.” I came upon my turn sooner than expected, and found myself in the wrong lane. As I slowed to change lanes, thereby countermanding the forward progress of everybody behind me, my father told me to drive around the block and try again. “Where you’re going, Steven, isn’t more important than where any of these other people are going,” he said. “Why should everybody else immediately stop what they’re doing just because you’re lost?”

Point taken.

Mutuality, in turn, gives birth to hospitality, the conscious practice of welcome and inclusion, solicitation and inquiry. If it’s true that I am no more or less important than anyone else, then recognizing, welcoming and including others becomes a way of life. When I bump into someone on aisle four at the grocery, I say, “Excuse me,” which is shorthand for “I confess that, in my quest for Polish dill spears, I constructed my own special universe and lived for a moment as if I was the only person whose existence mattered. Turns out you and your grocery cart live in my universe, too. My bad.”

Here the opposite of humility is entitlement and willful oblivion.

Humility is recognized by the responsible use of power. Or, as M. Scott Peck says in “The Road Less Traveled,” “The more power (healthy people) have, the more reluctant they are to use it.” Humility acknowledges an ethos deeper than ” ’cause I can.” Humility asks more rigorous questions: Should I? Is it right? Is it fair? Is it the right time? Is it necessary? Is it useful? Or am I just showing off?

Humility self-deprecates and self-satirizes, which in no way means diminishing or degrading the self. Rather, humility is recognized in a playfulness with self that springs from the acceptance of one’s common place in absurdity.

True humility makes a fair assessment of gifts and talents, enjoys them, but stops short of ego-identifying with those same gifts. We are not, in the end, summed up by our gifts. We are more than the sum of our attributes. Rich, tall, smart, pretty, leading passer rating in the NFL — these are parts of us, but, alone, they are an insufficient identity. If all Michael Jordan knows of himself is that he’s a really good basketball player, then he’s in for a long and lonely retirement. Humility recognizes and embraces our talents, but ultimately reaches for something deeper upon which to build a meaningful life.

Humility lives out the twin formula “I am not nothing … I am not everything.” It’s a surrender to the ordinary. We’re not special. We are, in fact, painfully predictable. Ordinarily human. We are born, we live, we eat, we sleep, we celebrate, we suffer, we die. The only thing remarkable is that we should live at all.

Even my narcissism is ordinary.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@review journal.com.