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Tabano’s Take on…Humility

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Tabano’s Take on…Humility

by Mr. Tabano, Editor-in-Chief, The Billows

The list of motivational thoughts, inspirational quotes, and proverbial adages that I can remember from my early days as a competitive amateur wrestler is seemingly innumerable.  Whether it was something I heard or read, it seemed like these notable sayings – which had time-frame (“Pain is temporary, pride is forever”), group membership (“There’s no ‘i’ in Team”), and even entrails descriptors (“no guts, no glory”) – were all around me all the time.  As is often the case for the competitive athlete though, few of these well-intended “spirit-lifters” ever made much of an impression on me.  There was one that I did internalize though, and I think it was because of how much it bothered me…“No matter how good you are, there’s someone out there who can beat you”.

I can still remember how upset this made me when I first heard my father (not the quote’s originator) say it.  The idea that I could never be the best, or that I could never fully enjoy an accomplishment was disheartening and to a certain extent, depressing.  I could even say that this very idea was the source of much of the anxiety I felt in my adolescence; a period of my life that, in no uncertain hyperbole, could be reduced to a quest to be the best.

As an adult, I now know what the problem was.  Humility.  What made (and still makes) that quote tough to accept is the humility it demands.  The challenge in believing you’re not the best at any given thing in this world is in every way a wholehearted acceptance of the value of humility.  Unfortunately, it seems that such humility is a scarce human trait in our contemporary society.

So what exactly is the value of humility?  Well my take is that being humble means being human.  To live, exist, suffer, grieve, and yes, even to thrive and succeed as a person in this world almost requires you to be in touch with your shortcomings; to know you can look better, work harder, be smarter, wait longer, dream bigger, smile wider, and act tougher are as important to you as your DNA.  It’s why we often find ourselves longing for what we don’t have, staying after school for extra help, and working overtime hours.  Unfortunately it’s also why some of us spend more money than we need to, drink more alcohol or do more drugs than we should, ask for a better grade than we got, scoff at the unfavorable decisions of our coaches, bosses, and directors, and why some of us just flat out give up and quit.
As a person who studies the English language closely, I find it tough to ignore the etymological relationship between ‘human’ and ‘humble’ as well.  On the englishforstudents.com website, it is noted that the Latin ‘humus’, meaning ‘lowly or from the earth’, is the root (no pun intended) of both words.  It seems that even from a linguistic point of view, being a human being asks us to have at least a base awareness of how low we are or can go.

Despite my qualms about being encouraged to believe that there’s always someone out there better than me, the concept inherent in the quote is true nonetheless.   Someone out there is better than me, and they’re better than you too.  In fact, there’s probably a lot more than one person tougher, smarter, more patient, more loving, a better father, a better mother, a better teacher, a better athlete, a better secretary, a better maintenance worker, a cuter girl, or a more handsome boy than all of us.

So what do we do about this?  We get better.  You can take the call for humility and do one of three things with it: use it to be a better person, use it as an excuse to be worse than you are, or nothing.  I prefer to use it to get better.  I prefer to look at the fact that I can’t be the best as a chance to keep trying to be.  I think this is the way to go.

I debated writing this next part, but I think it deserves its place in print…there were twenty young first-grade children and six adults who woke up last Friday to have breakfast and face a new day of trying to get better.  Tragically, their efforts were vaporized alongside the residue of automatic gun fire, from a weapon wielded by a young man whose humility defeated him.  A young man who saw only the low and nothing else.  A young man whose mother may also have been overcome by the humility of her parenting efforts and her child’s psychological challenges.   In remembering this tragedy, I think we should all in some way acknowledge that having humility does not mean accepting humiliation. Nor does it mean to stop being human.  It means to get better.  I hope things do just that for those mourning the Sandy Hook tragedy and for everyone who is living and breathing and trying to carve out some sort of a life in this world today…I hope things get better.

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