I recently discovered that February 22 is Be Humble Day. If you have never heard of Be Humble Day, you are not alone. Be Humble Day doesn’t advertise itself. It would be unseemly to do so.
No one knows who created Be Humble Day. Perhaps they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves.
I imagine the 2/22 date was carefully selected. Be Humble Day reminds us that there is more to life than “looking out for number one.” If there were a cheerleading squad for team Be Humble, their memorable cheer would be “We’re number two!”
If I’m right that the number two was important to the founder of this day, then 2/22/22 is an especially auspicious occurrence of Be Humble Day.
The King and the Wise Man
One of my favorite teachings about humility is found within a Hasidic story by Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav. In this story, there are two kings and a wise man. The first king sends the wise man to the country of the second king. The wise man’s task is to bring back a portrait of the second king to the first king.
At the very end of the story, the wise man achieves an audience with the second king. But they are separated by a curtain.
He [the wise man] started telling all the lies of the country. The king bent his ears towards the curtain to hear his words, because he was amazed there was a man who knew all the lies of the country. The ministers of the kingdom who heard his words were very angry with him, but he continued to tell all about the lies of the country.
That wise man concluded: “And one could say that the king, too, is like them, that he loves deceit like the country. But from this I see how you are a `man of truth.’ You are far from them, since you cannot stand the lies of country.”
The country represents our world. The second king represents God. Rabbi Nahman suggests that we are far from God because of all the lies of our world.
He [the wise man] started praising the king very much. The king was very humble, and his greatness lay in his humility. And this is the way of the humble person: The more one praises and exalts him, the smaller and humbler he becomes. Because of the greatness of the praise with which the wise man praised and exalted the king, the king became very humble and small, till he became nothing at all. And the king could not restrain himself, but cast away the curtain, to see the wise man: “Who is it who knows and understands all this?” And his face was revealed. The wise man saw him and painted his portrait and he brought it to the king.
—The King and the Wise Man, by Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav. Translated by Arnold J. Band.
Seeing Yourself As You Are
The praise of the wise man caused the second king (God) to become “nothing at all.” The wise man fulfills his appointed task by painting this nothing and bringing the painting to the first (earthly) king.
I love this description of how humility responds to praise by becoming smaller.
Our culture values self-confidence and self-esteem. Improperly understood, humility can appear to undermine these qualities.
I understand humility to mean seeing yourself as you are. Not better, not worse, but as you are.
If your self-confidence is based on overestimating your abilities or underestimating your flaws, then yes, humility can undermine self-confidence. But that’s because the self-confidence was built on a shaky foundation.
There are many forces at work that distort our view of ourselves. Overcoming these forces requires insight. It is usually difficult to see what we have become accustomed to overlooking. And if we are lucky enough to attain some insight, it often requires practice to integrate the insight into our lives.
Humility is a kind of North Star that helps orient us. It isn’t a final destination we achieve.
Humility and Spirituality
Humility, seeing yourself as you are, is one aspect of spirituality. The goal of spirituality is to see all things as they are.
My forthcoming book, Where Are You?: A Beginner’s Guide to Advanced Spirituality, is designed to help the reader see things as they are. I don’t claim to have attained any sort of spiritual perfection. I am still, very much, a work in progress. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to trace the distance I’ve come and provide pointers to continued growth.
I wrote this book to share my developing understanding with others. If you read the book, I’d love to hear your reactions. Writing a book is an odd endeavor. It’s all about communicating, yet no one can read what you’re writing until the book is published. With the publication, what was solitary becomes communal. I’ll only know how the book “lands” by hearing from those who have read it.
I look forward to hearing from you.