There is a restaurant chain known as Dick’s Last Resort that has a funny (albeit poignant) way of dealing with unsuspecting customers who claim to be in a hurry. “Hold everything! Hold everything!” a server will stand and proclaim to everyone else. “The rest of you will just have to wait. You won’t get anything to eat and you won’t get any service because the Smith family, right over here, is in a hurry. So sorry about your luck.”
I laugh at that, but I also cringe. I have been that Smith family member a time or two in my life, acting like the world revolves around me and no one else matters. I am like that wind up doll pastor Joyce Meyer jokes about, spinning around and around saying the same thing over and over, “What about me? What about me?”
I hate when I act like that.
I have complaints, as if somehow I have been uniquely ordained to require the universe to go my way. Or I exhibit some controlling behavior, as if it is everyone else’s responsibility to make me happy. Or I develop this critical spirit, as if the world really ought to give a damn what I think.
Talk about ugly. I’d ask somebody to slap some sense into me, but I’m a lawyer and the line would get pretty long.
So I have a resolution as we enter this new year that I intend to keep, and it is similar to the one Weight Watchers will advertise about every two or three seconds this weekend – only mine deals with my mental outlook.
There needs to be less of me.
IT'S CALLED HUMILITY, and it is not about thinking LOWLY of myself, but instead just not thinking OF myself all the time. It’s about dropping pretence, exhibiting confidence, showing love, dropping judgmentalism, giving compliments, considering others, accepting imperfection, asking questions and – in a general sense – realizing I can make a difference, if only I go about it the right way. I get so fed up when it is the other way around.
I’ve heard it said there are two kinds of people in this world: 1) the one who walks into a room and says, “Here I am,” and 2) the one who walks in and instead says, “There you are.” Facebook is great for the “there you are” moments. A daughter gets married, a mother passes away, or a special anniversary is commemorated. People can be so generous and kind.
But social media isn’t so hot when it comes to the “here I am” occasions. I don’t want to Facebook to create a comment bar in addition to “Like,” just because of me: “WCBIDAFYOOT” (Who Cares Because I Didn’t Ask For Your Opinion On That).
There is personal power in humility. There is also leadership and integrity. C.S. Lewis once said, “Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.” But there is none of that in “Here I Am.”
1 Peter 5 says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
YEARS AGO I worked in the clubhouse at Shaker Run Golf Course, and though I love golf, I did not enjoy the experience. There were too many people who walked in acting like they owned the course and wanted to boss me around like I was nothing.
But then one day an older gentleman approached me as I was cleaning out a golf cart. I asked me my name, then wanted to know whether I was still in college and what kind of future goals I had.
Then he said, “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you please help me and my wife with our bags?”
Of course I would’ve jumped to the moon for that man, all because of the way he treated me.
Moments later, I asked a co-worker, “Who was that guy?”
“Oh, that’s William Verity. The CEO of Armco. Nice man, isn’t he?”
Indeed, he was. I learned a lesson that day – that if you have to tell someone how important you are, you must not be all that important.
So this is my New Year’s toast, to humility.
If you ‘Like’ this, I’ll know you agree. And if you don’t, I’ll know you’ve said something else.
WCBIDAFYOOT.
Touche.