Humility - to Thine own self be True

A.W. Tozer wrote, "The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life: In himself, nothing; In God, everything. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring."

Lao Tzu wrote, "When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you."

There seems to be something very powerful in knowing who you are, but letting go of the responsibility of making everyone else see who you are.

People like to know where they are from their proximity to other things and people. People like to climb ladders, or at least pass people on the ladder, without perhaps considering where the ladder is going. Maybe we really want to be on an escalator or a sidewalk, but everyone was on the ladder and dag-gum-it, I'm going to be farther up the ladder than they are.

Lately, I've been feeling lost a lot. I seem to feel my way more than find my way, more and more. Friends are marrying and talking about moving up the property ladders and securities and houses and in my mind so much of it seems like a game. The one thing I would really like to do is just pay off all my school loans and not owe anyone anything. Then I could sail around the world on a missionary ship or sleep on my grandma's couch if she got sick or backpack through the Alps for 6 months and not worry about payments being due.

Why is it that it seems like the older we get the more long term commitments we make and then fight for freedom?

Marrying is the least of my worries... I wouldn't mind yoking myself to a man for all eternity, but I break out in sweats even thinking about a year lease on a house, or buying another car, or having to make payments on anything. I'd honestly just go without.

I get this feeling that people get their self worth from the things they have and they want others to see that they live in a certain way. I get worried about that once in a while when I invite someone over and realize I haven't vacuumed in about a month or that every housemate I have has used all of my dishes and I have about an hour's worth of dishes to do and 20 minutes before people will be ringing my doorbell. I can't answer the door with dish pan hands! This is why I feel much more comfortable asking people over after I've been to their house first. If I know how they live, I know what they expect and I can sort of match it up.

But then I just invite them over and make sure I've taken the trash out and offer them tea or coffee and we sit and chat in the garden and I realize that, really, as long as I give them tea, it's all good, cause everyone lives pretty much the same anyway and what was I so worried about?

I was worried that they were going to judge me... that I was somehow not going to measure up to some standard and then I would be alone.

I know a lady who is a boss to a group of people and she gets really frustrated that they never come to her for help. But whenever she finds out they need help, all she does is yell at them for not coming to her and then talk about how great she is.

I don't think most people realize how prideful they are. Most of the time we all walk around feeling alone and unworthy and ugly and fat, but then if someone calls us a name, we instantly rise up in indignation and argue. We want to be counted worthy and in our minds we think we are because we've all picked out people we're better then. "Well, I'm not as thin as Sarah, but I'm tiny compared to Tina." "Tony just got a raise, but Martin will never get one--maybe I should ask for one..."

This is part of the reason reality TV is so funny... it should be called relative TV. Most of the people we see on American Idol or Wife Swap or Beauty and the Geek or America's Next Top Model... all we do is compare them. The audition episodes of American Idol are always cringeworthy for me because everyone gathers around their tvs to have some innocent person completely inept of their lack of talent completely embarrass themself on national tv and everyone feels completely fine about laughing their pants off at them. I sort of want to bury my head in the couch cushions.

The two quotes I start off with talk about not letting other's opinions change your ideas about yourself. It's about knowing who you are. As I said earlier, we try to know who we are or where we are by our relationships to other things. If I'm at the station, I need to go to blocks west and one north to get to my house...etc. But these authors suggest a different way of knowing ourself... innately. We have an identity which has blossomed on its own and will continue to do so independently of the orientation of what's around us. And as Lao Tzu said, it has a lot to do with contentment... with being ok with yourself and with how others view you...

I think in humans there is a hole of longing of wanting to be known. I think we try to know ourselves from all this minutia which makes up our lives... but is my life the books I own or the places I've been or even the things I've done? Can a life be quantified? What are the numbers which will give it the correct amount of value? I think when we move in this direction of thinking we move away from the sacredness of humanity.

I think making humanity normal is what has damaged it the most. People have been valued according to their attributes and some are more expendable than others. When all we are doing is thinking about our own value it's hard to see how we could be helping others... living in community... being effective humans. Being loving humans. Being kind humans. Being human humans.

But when we are content with ourselves the fear dissipates and we are free to do... creative things, funny things, kind things, sometimes crummy things or stupid things, but doing something than just comparing.