Learning About Myself: A Lesson in Humility

The past couple of days have been in short, extremely eye-opening. In particular, as the title suggests, I've finally began to understand what humility truly is. This is rather significant in relation to the fact that I've lived the past few years of my life with a particular understanding of humility that I now recognize has been particularly harmful. There is a slight back story, and I'd like to say it helps it all make sense but considering that I still am in the process of making connections between so many moving pieces I still don't see the entire picture.

What initially moved me towards consciously practicing humility was reading St. Augustine's comments on pride. It was particularly influencing as, in brief, he talks about pride being at the source of a lot of other vain and sinful activities. So I tried to avoid being prideful like the plague. I tried to minimize any positive attribution to myself as I thought that was being puffed up with pride and being to focused on myself. Instead I tried to focus on others, divert compliments to other people and lift them up and tried not to draw positive attention to myself. I would accept thank yous and gestures of appreciation but in a shy awkward kind of way since to be honest I didn't really know how to. On top of that there was a whole guilt factor like I didn't really deserve these compliments and gestures. Sometimes that was indeed the case; however, in retrospect sometimes I really deserved those for some of the hard work I did.

Of course being me this whole "humility" attitude was amplified by a sense of perfectionism. I'd always hold myself up to an extremely high standard, sometimes impossible standards, and expected myself to achieve them. I did this with everything: academic work, campus ministry work, RAing, relationships, helping people, giving advice, etc. It was quite exhausting considering I did a lot in college and nothing ever seemed up to par. Even in those moments in which I felt I achieved success there was no joy or celebration. Merely a, "Good I didn't fail here, now onto the next task." So a false sense of humility fused with perfectionism became a very dangerous and harmful thing that in the end, as hard as it is to admit, led me to really not being satisfied with myself or what I was doing.

So this going on I'm siting down with my community member, Mike (aka: The Sundance Kid) and we're talking in our living room late at night about some vocational stuff I was stressed out about. The conversation turned to the fact that I couldn't do anything about it right now since that's not why I'm in SoDak. That's when he went into his blunt, I'm-going-to-tell-you-to-your-face-how-it-is mode (which I'm grateful for) and pretty much said, "You shit on yourself all the time." While I can't remember everything else word for word but in essence he pointed out how since he's met me (a mere 3-4 weeks) all he's seen me do is shit all over myself, not take a compliment, etc. Basically he made the point that I couldn't fulfill any real vocation without learning to love myself first which is maybe why I was in SoDak in the first place. I want to say I already knew that but that hit me in a way that it never had before and that was only the beginning.

That following day was Sunday so we had a couple of Masses to go to. I was previously aware that the readings surrounded the theme of humility. However, it did not make the connection or realize it immediately. So at Mass I was rocked by both the reflection in the provided the WORD among us magazines and the homily Fr. Jim gave. They both talked about the true nature of humility which in a nutshell is accepting the gifts and talents given to you by God and using them to glorify God. This being done by using them and accepting compliments and gestures as a way of praising God and thanking God for working through you. Denying one's self isn't glorifying God as it is denial of the gifts that God gave you to use. Additionally, in relation to others, it is exalting and honoring our brothers and sisters (other people) for their gifts and talents as well even in times of jealousy, in which we have to recognize that those are their gifts from God and not necessarily ours. Thus it is a false sense of who we are (in terms of what we lack in this case) but of who God is (working through the that particular individual) and of course this is far from easy and hence it's a virtue. Thus humility isn't this thinking poorly of oneself or feeling worthless which I was used to. Rather it is being aware of ourselves and who we and knowing our place in relation to others and God and acknowledging, respecting, and acting on those relations. This was mind blowing in a lot of ways on an a spiritual and emotional level.

This still leaves my perfectionism. This was addressed by Fr. Jim in between Masses in which he told me that while we are called to be perfect like our Father, the just man falls seven times a day (scripture reference, which I unfortunately cannot remember). Basically, we need to strive for the best we can but recognize we are not perfect. Using Ignatian Spirituality Fr. Jim helped me explore this and we concluded that this sense and desire for perfectionism was not from God but from what Ignatius called, "evil spirits" due to the fact that my perfectionism never led me to any sense of peace and away from God.

So putting some of these pieces into motion together the major realization I've had is in order to be truly humble I need to cut beating the crap out of myself over everything and learn not only to accept love from other people but also to accept love from God and to love myself. Then I can be truly humble and at that point perhaps, God willing, I'll be ready to accept my vocation. As Mike The Sundance Kid put it, I've found my demon that I'll be facing this year. And in the words of the great MC Eminem (I know, I know, bear with me),

"Thought I had it mapped out but I guess I didn't, this fucking black cloud

Still follows, me around but it's time to exorcise these demons

These motherfuckers are doing jumping jacks now!"

So to close out, here's a song by Jason Gray that I think is pretty much a good summary of this whole post. As always thanks for reading, prayers for Jessica, Mike, and myself are always very appreciated as we wade through all the stuff SoDak throws at us. God bless!