Humility, the soil from which our best human qualities grow.
This is the story of how one word changed my perspective. At a time when I was facing intense challenges in my life, my therapist sent me a text with supportive quotes and guidelines to help me navigate the situation. I do not remember any of it anymore except for one word: Humanness.
I read everything in a hurry and stopped, mesmerised by the word Humanness. I did not know what it meant, but I gave it my own meaning and purpose. In that moment, I felt that humanness is the definition of all the characteristics that make us different and one of a kind, even in the broader sense of cultures. It felt like a label, but one that helped me look at the world more openly and without limitations.
When was the last time that you noticed something unique in someone that softened your perception of them? How did it make you feel?
For me, humanness means acknowledging every detail about the people I meet as a mark of how beautifully diverse we all are. If someone speaks in a funny way or has their own unique accent, that is humanness. If someone does something in their own distinctive way, that is humanness. If someone performs a ritual related to their culture or beliefs, that is humanness. If someone does something very differently from what I would expect, that is humanness.
I choose to replace judgement with acceptance through the lens of humanness. It is a way for me to learn, to discover, and to develop my best human qualities.
What is one aspect of yourself that you sometimes judge but could gently reframe as part of your own humanness?
The relationship between humanness and humility is very deep, suggesting that being truly human involves embracing limitation, groundedness, and connection.
Accepting that we are fallible, imperfect, and interdependent brings me ease and helps me see my purpose.
Recognising that no individual is inherently more valuable than another makes me feel part of a whole, part of a shared participation guided by intention.
@sunshineOcean8546
I think when we learn that everyone has dignity so they deserve a certain level of respect and compassion.
I try to remain humble in my words and actions but I also make sure this means speaking up when the same dug ity and humanity is being abused in anyway and adhering to my own morals and values 💚🤗
@Amanda84 you are talking Gold here. Acting in such a way as to recognise the dignity in each and everyone of us and all that is around us it is a wonderful gift that we give and also pays back.
@sunshineOcean8546
💛💛💛
@sunshineOcean8546
well, all your other words is make sense and good, and most of it I'm align or agree with you but on these case I think it wasn't realistic.
"Recognising that no individual is inherently more valuable than another makes me feel part of a whole, part of a shared participation guided by intention. " -> every individual inherently different value else there will be no diversity. for ex. what gene you are born, where you were born, whom you are born, it effecting all, not all are the same, some could have more, some could have less.
It is life and we can't choose it, it is given by the one above us.
I mean like can you choose what gene you want to be born?
you can't but your parents can.
For ex. Someone short want to get tall then they will pick tall ppl to married because it was the chances to at-least able to give tall inheritance to their child.
The child can't choose but the parents could.
But again, life isn't about what you are left with but what you could be.
Which mean, if you are short then you could try to consume things to make you tall,
When you are from bad enviroment then you could move to a better enviroment.
So, life is mix with fix and unfix things, these is what makes life complex and dynamics.
Caused there are certain things you can change and have to accept but there are certain in life which you have the choice to choose what to change, this is call rationality and realistic and each decision there will always consequences because for each time spent, there are time loss, so, it is traded base on what things you consider as important or matters.
We all are a trade from the day we are having the capability to choose or when we are being concious.
This is there is diversity in these world, no matter how you try to equalized it, at the end of the day, it will always end up unequal because there are somethings in these world that aren't changing or fix, the system was there long before we are even existed. but we always can choose what to do on what we own or what is given to us, the most basic thing is time, we all are give the equal time 24h a day but the value of each time is different for each ppl depanding on lot's of variable such as what I already said before. This is why, it is important to be rational and realistic, because too unrealistic will only make you suffer unless you can afford it to bend the reality. Caused what is real sometimes could be base on common agreement. such as time is 24h a day, why not 36h a day because the number agree is 24h and why is that? because someone was able to afford 24h on the global system eventhough technically, 1 day isn't equal excatly 24hours but 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds but to make it easy we just call it 24h a day.
@organticUnicorn9398 Thank you for reading my post and sharing what you feel about it with me. What you are sharing is basically the gist of what I was trying to convey. We are divers, and I choose to look at it with loving eyes, and I worked and still do work on deconstructing social stereotypes such as putting a higher aesthetic value on height. I work on my beliefs to discover where such stereotypes influence my view of the world. Are tall people more valuable then not so tall ones? no, they are just different. Each one of us has value that is not set or determined by social stereotypes.
I really appreciate with how much complexity you have approached this prompt. Yes, we are predetermined almost entirely by the genes that we inherit, but even there is a fine tuning that is dictated by environment.
Yes, I agree that most of us live in systems that have set pretty rigid rules, and this systems even tempered with the natural flow of life, and we are here to make the best of it. Personally I feel much more peaceful since I started to reflect on this rigid rules of life, love, relationships, aesthetics and productivity. I know about them, I know how they work but I do not have to follow or align if they do not resonate with my values and my way of seeing life. I choose not to let rules and stereotypes and even lack of complexity to decide my value, or anyone else's.
@sunshineOcean8546
I really love how you’ve described “humanness”, it makes me think differently about the little quirks and differences in people. I sometimes judge my own indecisiveness, but seeing it as part of my humanness helps me be gentler with myself and more understanding of others too.
