[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak||no_popup[/img]In my articles, I try to show a positive approach to life. I have, however, overlooked the importance of humility.
One rarely remembers humility in our daily attempts to earn success, happiness and prosperity. We forget how our quest may be faring for others.
Have you ever seen the impressive organizing that goes into “pilfering” the blue recycle cans for plastic and glass? In my neighborhood, two guys show up in a battered red Toyota pickup truck at least 15 years old.
They unload their own trash cans and proceed to go through every blue can in the neighborhood, picking out the plastic and glass one piece at a time. After filling their trashcans, they go back to the truck, empty them and resume their pattern.
With the current economic climate, we often see sights like these. We have hardened our hearts to the hard times around us.
When one is employed and achieving one’s goals, I wonder what makes a person rummage through trashcans to make a living. What were his circumstances? How did he get here? What was his journey?
It Could Happen
When unemployed, how does your thinking change when you see what once had hardened your hearts? Perhaps circumstances would dictate that what we saw could, someday, be our fate, too.
I saw humility in the work they were doing. On one occasion I offered them a large trash bag filled with plastic bottles. Their faces lit up as they gratefully accepted it. On reflection, they also had a modesty about them. They tried to be unobtrusive in their work.
Humility: The quality or condition of being humble; modest of opinion or estimate of one’s own importance.
Modesty: Having or showing moderate or humble estimate of one’s merits, importance, free from vanity, egotism, boastfulness or great pretensions. Free from ostentation, or showy extravagance. Having or showing regard for the decencies of behavior, speech, dress.
Is what you are doing really working?
Do you show any humility?
Perhaps rather than griping about the work you are doing or the environment where you work or the people you work or live with, you can learn a modicum of humility.
Remember that the sum total of our thoughts and decisions has brought us to where we are today. We are surely where we have put ourselves, and we need to own it. That is when we gain a measure of humility.
The I Ching says of humility: A man must reduce that which is too much and augment that which is too little. He weighs things and makes them equal.
Employed or unemployed. Successful in our field or not, one common theme among the successful is that they are humble. They treat others as they would like to be treated. They generally receive what they give.
How to Succeed by Really Trying
Case in point.
My wife and I were returning from London when we noticed Sir Richard Branson on the plane. It was after all his airline, Virgin Airlines. He was not sitting in first class, but out and about in coach, talking to passengers. When he walking past us, I asked him a question but he politely asked me to hold on. Another passenger had asked him for a glass of water. He returned with the requested water.
He came straight back to me and asked me how he could help. Yes, he asked me how he could help. I told him two girls ages 11 and 12 sitting behind me were traveling to the USA as a reward for their academic accomplishments and they had wanted to talk to him. He thanked me and immediately went to sit between them. They talked at least 20 minutes, laughing and joking as if they had known each other all their lives. Sir Richard had that quality of humility about him that had made him the success he is.
Some may see humility as weakness. But it represents a quiet strength that cannot be ignored. True humility is indeed strength.
Remember, as with success, humility is not something we are born with. You must work to earn it.
A clinical hypnotherapist, handwriting analyst and expert master hypnotist, Nicholas Pollak may be contacted at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net
