On The Journey Towards Humility

When I was a teenager, I came across a Turkish proverb to the effect that living well is like walking across snow, leaving no footprints. Already inclined toward self-deprecation, I took it on as a sort of ideal. And as the world has grown more fast-paced and aggressive, as success has increasingly come to be defined in terms of brash self-promotion and ruthless acquisition, as our culture has destroyed more and more of nature rather than trying to live in a sustainable way, I continue to believe this proverb holds much wisdom.
But walking lightly on the earth and disappearing oneself out of a mistaken notion of humility are very different things. I think of this Hasidic saying: Everyone must have two pockets, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, according to need. In the right pocket are to be the words: "For my sake was the world created," and in the left: "I am dust and ashes."
Sometimes we are meant to do our best to walk leaving no footprints, and sometimes we are meant to be vividly present. Sometimes our false modesty needs a boost of affirmation, and sometimes our unwitting arrogance needs a chastening reminder of mortality. Of course, the world will give us feedback, some deserved and some not. But we are granted the responsibility and the volition to choose from our pockets the message needed for a particular moment. Our confidence to make that discernment is rooted in trust in the good, unique, God-given essence of who we are.
(The Hasidic saying is from Martin Buber, Ten Rungs: Hasidic Sayings, altered for inclusive language.)

- Susan M. S. Brown