Humility.

Humility.

We have all heard of it. We have all learnt about it. We have all heard our idols speak volumes about it (well, most of our idols).

So, we all know humility is a virtue. And that it is important to practice it. Make it a part of our life. An inseparable part.

And yet, we hardly ever practice it in real life. We rarely find ourselves in a position where we do something more than ‘graciously’ accepting a compliment received by us. Very rarely do we see ourselves giving compliments back to people who (may or may not) deserve them.

When someone says something good about us, we are more than happy to take credit for whatever it is that we have done good. Without giving a single thought, to questions like – are we the only ones responsible for it? OR... are we the only ones who deserve credit for it?
What we do instead, is feel extremely happy about it (nothing wrong in that); and believe that what has come to us has come to us because we deserve it. We are ‘worth it’ (as a well-known brand never forgets to remind us, at least us women, that is).

And it may not be wrong in most cases. It may really be well-deserved in a lot of situations. But then again, even if it is so, is it really not important to, exactly at that moment, be humble about it? To be ‘gracious’ and smile and say, ‘oh, it is okay, it would’ve happened anyway, I was just a medium, is all…’ or something to that effect?

But we don’t do that. Well, most of us ‘vain’ people don’t do that.

Instead, we actually ‘believe’ that we are as great as the compliments make us out to be. We don’t take it as people being kind. We take it as our right.

And that is when, a supreme power that resides above all of us, decides to take matters in its hands. It decides, that the time has come, to show us, who is in charge. To guide us to the right path; by bringing us down to earth from our lofty day-dream; by bursting our balloon, so to say.

And the supreme power does this with style. It hits you when you least expect it. And in ways you would never have thought of. Or even in a way that seems like a routine hiccup, but is in fact, the divine power at play, enjoying every bit of the drama He/She has created.

What am I on about? Well, as it so happened, a few days back, an anthology was released, that had my work featured in it. This was the second time I was a contributor to a published anthology and I was super happy and tremendously excited about it. A lot of friends and family congratulated me and I spent hours on social media thanking everyone for their comments and wishes and blessings. In all this, I almost started believing that I was as awesome a writer as they were all making me out to be. I thought I was super brilliant and was about to go into that ‘lofty day-dream’ I mentioned.

And that is when the supreme power decided to bring me down to earth.

My maid called in sick. No, correction, she didn’t call. She just didn’t turn up. So then I called her, only to find out, that she was sick. And suddenly, I found myself turning to mounds of vessels in the sink, and the mounds of congratulatory messages that I was to reply to, were completely forgotten.

I should have recognised the hand of the supreme power in this. But I am a mere human. And it is not my place, nor nobility, to recognise the said hand of the supreme power in making me realise my place. So I just treated the incident as a blip on my radar and went about my business of thanking everyone.

But the supreme power was bent upon making me see the errors of my ways. And so it happened that the next day too, I was faced with the same situation. This time, just as the congratulatory messages on my social media account, the mound of vessels in the sink had doubled too. And this time, there was no way I was going to be able to ignore it.

So, like the ignorant, foolish human that I am – like most of us are – I rolled up my sleeves, and got ready to get my hands dirty, literally.

And it was when I was halfway through this mindless job – precisely, when I was scraping the remnants of the particularly ‘over’ boiled tea leaves from the kettle that it hit me, that this was a wonderful game the supreme power had played with me! And I couldn’t help but marvel, at how swiftly, just in one stroke, the supreme power had shown me that no matter how high one thought one could fly, there are always ways to come down to earth and feel humble about your achievements.

Ironically, it was the day the anthology released, that I was standing at a sink-full of vessels, marveling at this divine intervention in my life.

I thought it is important to share this, just in case, any of my friends are feeling right ‘on top of the world’ right now, or something. You know, be grateful, be humble, express gratitude for what you have, guys, or else, right up there, is the supreme power, waiting to unleash all His/Her divine mirth on us ;)
Just saying.