“Humility does not mean being fainthearted or passive. It leads neither to fatalism nor to capitulation. Exactly the opposite. In humility, there is a hidden strength—a strength that springs from within. Whoever humbly submits to the divine essence of life will abide in unperturbed tranquility and peace even when the whole wide world is thrown into turmoil.”
— Elif Shafak, “The Forty Rules of Love”
Humility is a fundamental spiritual value. It is also one of the most important ingredients of love. It is one of the lessons I have studied most diligently, because I know that every time I deviate from it, life deals me a very painful slap to put me back in my place. And because it is quite painful, in order to avoid future trouble, I find I must preemptively put myself back in my place. What helps me most in learning this lesson is distinguishing between humility (smirenie) and resignation (primirenie). Being a rebel by nature, for a long time I felt an intolerance at the mere mention of the idea of humility… until I discovered this difference.
Now I know that I can be simultaneously humble and uncompromising (neprimirima). To make this happen in practice, I have to distinguish between the three parts of my reaction: thinking (how I interpret the event and what meaning I assign to it), emotions (how I feel), and behavior (what I do).
The reaction of humility is a reaction at the level of feelings and thoughts, based on understanding and accepting the facts. And although “understanding” involves many things here, the most important thing to grasp is defining one’s personal zone of responsibility and influence. Or, as Byron Katie brilliantly formulated it: “There are only three kinds of business: mine, yours, and God’s.” Humility is the attitude of knowing that I know so little about the Big Picture of the world and the invisible connections between things.
The reaction of uncompromisingness is a reaction at the level of actions, where we do not allow others to abuse us and we continue to try to change things for the better. We can be very combative and uncompromising and at the same time very humble, if the intention behind the action is not revenge, punishment, resentment, malice, and above all—arrogance, the attitude of “I know best.”
Distinguishing between the three parts of the psychological reaction helps us stay vigilant when something that looks like humility on the outside (passive behavior) actually isn’t (if we are boiling with anger and indignation inside). True humility, as Elif Shafak writes, is a tremendous strength, but not in the way we are used to imagining what strength looks like.
Gandhi called this power Satyagraha—a beautiful word that describes what the union of opposites between struggle and acceptance looks like in the right way.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
