I love dessert. Given the choice, I’d rather have a slice of dessert for breakfast rather than anything else. I come by ithonestly – my mother is a total dessert junkie, too. Of all the desserts, one of my favorites is warm apple pie… or pumpkin pie or lemon chess or key lime pie or…. Well, you get the picture.
While I could have it daily, I know I shouldn’t if I want TRY to keep up with our campers during the summer. That got me thinking, “What kind of pie could I have every day and it be good for me?”
A good book by Dr. Leonard Sax recently gave me the answer: Humble pie.
A Confession
I have a confession to make: sometimes I feel like everything revolves around me. When one of our team helps me to snap out of it (Kate is the best at it), I get that ‘doggone it, I let it happen again’ feeling and promise to do better. Depending on what I read and how much time I spend focused on others, I’m better or worse about it.
Do you ever feel this way, that everything is about you? Sometimes it comes up when you are thinking about plans for the weekend or the dinner you want that night or just getting ‘your stuff’ done.
There is certainly a need to take care of ‘your stuff’ be it school work, a job, practice, etc. But when we get all wrapped up in the cocoon of ‘me’, we lose sight of what’s important – the relationship we have with those around us.
You know what a great time and place is to get out of this ‘me, me, me’ mindset? Ten o’clock on a starry night on Main Campus. Another good time and place? Walking the trails with your counselors and buddies picking and eating the wild blueberries. Want one more? How about huddled around the campfire with the entire camp besides you.
Looking around you in those moments make you realize the community is really fun and takes a lot of people to make it this way. Being amongst the trees makes you realize that we are small and have the power to protect or take away the forests. Observing the stars that are billions of years old and light years away….
When you consider all this in that moment, the realization that we are small puts us in our place a bit. It reminds us to practice humility.
Humble Pie
What is humility? Some people mistakenly think it’s thinking less of yourself. Rather, humility is thinking about yourself less and thinking more about those around you.
In his recent book Twelve Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson suggests the following:
Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you need to know. Listen to them hard enough so that they will share it with you.
This practice of thinking about and being interested in other people as much as yourself can be hard to learn. The rise of Instagram, Snapchat, and other means of broadcasting yourself makes switching focus outward towards other people even more challenging.
But, things that are hard to do are – many times – really important. It was hard for you to learn to walk. Growing teeth was incredibly uncomfortable. Learning to speak, read and write? Really hard. (Once you are a parent, you’ll understand….)
However, these new skills that you developed with lots and lots of practice make you a healthier, more independent human. If we want a happier, more connected, and enjoy a meaningful life, we’ll chase humility.
Humility is the doorway to gratitude. In Dr. Sax’s words, the practice of humility ‘leads to gratitude, appreciation and contentment. The key to lasting happiness is contentment.’
Practice
So, in the week ahead, let’s all do a good job in being as interested in those around us as we are with ourselves. Building the habit of humility is just like building anything else – it takes intentional practice and lots of it. But, I bet we’ll be happier for it.
Now, if I could just find that last piece of the apple pie….Have a great week!
