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What is humility?
That’s a deep question, isn’t it? There probably is no official answer, and I bet everybody has their own definition of what humility means for them.
The dictionary definition says humility is being humble, and having a modest opinion of one’s importance. That sounds about right. But a modest opinion of one’s importance is certainly up for interpretation. If you’re the CEO of a billion-dollar corporation and issue directives that hundreds of people rush to do every day, I bet it’s hard to have a modest opinion of oneself.
I bring all of this up because I read some recovery literature recently where we ended up dissecting humility for an hour, and I had an unexpected takeaway myself—that for me, there is a direct relationship between humility and humor.
Think about it for a second. Humble people can laugh at themselves, and can usually laugh at the world when shitty stuff happens. In sobriety, we often hear, “Don’t take yourself too damn serious,” and it’s interesting when you apply that to humility.
Let me give you a few real-world examples of how I think this plays out. Imagine for a second you are in a busy parking lot and can’t find a space. Finally, you see someone pulling out so you sit nearby and wait for the person to pull out. Just when the spot is open, someone darts in and takes the spot.
This is very aggravating, isn’t it? I definitely would have an urge to scream at the a*****e. But humble people chuckle a bit, call the guy an a*****e under their breath and find another spot. No yelling. No arrests for disorderly conduct. You let the a*****e go about their day as the a*****e that they are.
Another example: You get to the office and somebody makes a joke about how your outfit doesn’t match. Multiple people look over and laugh. You want to launch the person into the sun, or make fun of them for something they might have done.
A humble person turns it into a joke and says something like, “I thought it was mismatch Monday!”
I realize how hard that is to do, and I am at about a 90 percent fail rate on that myself, because it stings. If you have any ego whatsoever, it’s embarrassing for somebody to pick on you for your appearance, and it makes you want to lash out. That’s pride and ego being pretty thin-skinned. I always think about how one of the agreements in the book The Four Agreements is about how you should never take anything personal. Nothing. Think about your life where your ego is at the exact right size, and you know who you are and what you stand for, so when somebody says you have a shitty car or an ugly house, you don’t care. It’s their opinion and they can have it, because you know the truth.
It also means you don’t need anybody’s validation to feel good about who you are. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s humility to me. And in private—not to their face—it never hurts my humility to find the humor in people who are that aggressive about weighing in on other peoples’ lives, because that is a pretty crappy way to go through life. I don’t want to live like that, that’s for sure.
One final thing about humor and humility… how many times does something bother you today, but then you find it hilarious a week later? That happens so much to me. I’ll whine and moan and groan and be pissed about something, then a week later I am telling it as a funny story. It’s because my humility is back in the right spot, where I am humble enough to laugh about tripping in front of 10 people at the grocery store, or that snippy email a coworker sent. So I always challenge myself to think, if I am going to laugh about this a week from now, why not just be humble and laugh about it now?
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
OLDIE BUT GOODIE: "Since I have three speakers tonight," said the leader at an open meeting, "I'm not going to spend time qualifying myself. I think you can assume I'm an alcoholic, because damned if I've ever heard of anybody getting up here by mistake!"
(Credit: Grapevine, January 2009)
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