This quote comes from Thomas Merton, who was an author and Trappist monk. What I appreciate about this quote is the simplicity and the kindness of it. I find that when we are managing anything in our lives, we tend to overcomplicate things. We like to look for the millions of possibilities, get caught up in the drama of all the problems, get overwhelmed, and then either gut through it or give up all together.
A different option might be admitting that we don’t know the answer right off the bat. This is my favorite part of difficult problems – that I don’t know what I’m doing. This may seem counterintuitive, and I am the first to admit that it wasn’t my go to response for a very long time. I spent years beating my head against the burden of having to know everything, all the time, and it better be the right thing.
What did that get me? A lot of stress, fear, uncertainty, and inability to appreciate failure for the opportunity that it is. I say this without any idealism at all. We cannot talk about failure in idealistic terms. Failure always has consequences and they typically make us very uncomfortable. But without the consequences of failure we would not have the need to learn from it.
So what does this have to do with humility when faced with a problem? Well, we like to think that every problem is the same and requires the same solution. But what if we saw every problem as its own unique entity, something we have never seen before and need to learn about and from before proceeding with a perceived solution? We might be more inclined to study our problems and understand them fully before throwing half-baked and expensive solutions at them.
This kind of humility is strength because it requires us to put down the pride in our achievements to date. We have to look at each thing with the new eyes of discovery and exploration rather than fear of the unknown.
Here is an activity for you, should you wish to partake:
- Set the timer for 90 seconds.
- In the middle of a piece of paper, write the word HUMILITY. Draw a circle around it.
- When you’re ready, start the clock. Write down all the things that come to mind for you about humility (each item should be connected to the circle by a line). Follow each thing until your mind is blank.
- Stop when the timer sounds.
- Turn the paper over and repeat the exercise for the word STRENGTH.
- Look at the results. Is there anything you wrote down for both words? How do you see HUMILITY and STRENGTH linked in your experience?
Have a great day!