A Sense of Unimportance

A Sense of Unimportance I’m going to write today about humility. It’s not highly regarded as a virtue and can remind us of the hypocritical Uriah Heep who was “ever so ‘umble” while being just the opposite, or those who live in the background and never put themselves forward. Winston Churchill cruelly remarked, when someone said the then Prime minister Clement Attlee was a humble man “...he has a lot to be humble about.” So, dull and unmemorable: is that what humility means? As a psychologist I find it a fascinating topic because it is quite rare and I have found it most in people who have other positive qualities to their lives including kindness and generosity. I first started to think about it when, many years ago, I was teaching in a convent school and Sister Mary Christa, asked me to take a school assembly on St. Joseph the husband of Mary and the natural father of Jesus. I scratched my head, he didn’t do much , how could I spread a man who had a bit part in nativity plays over half an hour ? Then I thought that is precisely it: Joseph never sought the limelight, he accepted Mary’s explanation of her pregnancy and became his legal father. Of course, there are those who will think him a fool for doing this but Joseph believed the promises of God. It taught me a lot about humility, so often we don’t listen to others because we want to put our point of view across. We talk endlessly about ourselves and our possessions and our successes in life. We hardly ever talk about when we have been depressed , or broken, or have failed. For our psychological health we need a sense of our self-unimportance and a sense of humour to mock our ambitions and pretensions. Our character is formed from self-knowledge and facing challenges that really test us, not from boasting and exaggerating our achievements. The importance of humility is that we can put our own needs into perspective, "If I could buy that man for what he is worth and sell him for what he thinks he is worth I could make a fortune!"