modesty makes difficult easy

Modesty doesn’t get a good press. it’s a virtueof course, but is it really necessary to live better or be happier?

He journalist and editor Paco Valero, who directed the magazine for 10 years ComprehensiveIn this article, review what great thinkers have said about modesty and reflect on the advantages of cultivating it in our day to day.

Is modesty necessary in these times?

By Paco Valero

More than one self-help book says no, modesty is not necessary to live better, and even ventures to affirm the opposite: modesty is a impediment to happiness because it constrains what we are or can be.

It comes to say that to look goodwe put on a suit several sizes smaller than what we need and, in the end, it is our body that adapts to it. We belittle ourselves with modesty.

In another book it is said that modesty crown the lives of those who have everything: wealth, beauty, success… and since they cannot lack for anything, they also have modesty. Without her, the perfection of their lives would be less apparent and our appreciation for those people, minor.

But if our life does not have that shine, modesty ceases to be an ornament for become a statement.

It’s not that we show ourselves modest, it’s that “we” are modest: limited, poor in spirit, humble… In other words, appearing modest is fine, but being modest is another story.

Elsewhere, finally, I have read that modesty is the worst life strategy that we can choose because, by underestimating ourselves, we abandon or do not undertake the search of what can enhance our life.

Somehow, the author said, we link ourselves to the image we project and if it is humble, we will be humble, while if we see ourselves as successful people, we will look for ways to be successful people.

A virtue for today’s times

Given the above, it seems that modesty It is an expired, old virtuethat little or nothing can teach those of us who live in these first years of the 21st century.

And yet, it is evident that something positive must have when so many great men have claimed it in the past.

It is even worth asking, as economic and social specialists and some political leaders have done, if it has not been lack of modestyof moderation on the part of all and especially among the most powerful, one of the causes of the enormous economic crisis that much of the planet is going through.

With more modesty, we would have been more realistic in the good years about the possibilities of each one and less prone to vanities.

But we have behaved like nouveau riche, little predisposed to listen to what the Greco-Roman wise man said almost two thousand years ago epictetus against excesses: “Remember that you must lead you through life like a banquet. Has a plate reached you? Stretch out your hand without ambition, all modestly“.

Modesty, neither recklessness nor shyness

But no wonder we ignored it. Yeah what is most valued in our society is performance and the feeling of pride for what has been achieved, yes everything pushes us to “progress”What is the point of showing modesty in the claims and achievements? Is it not a fraud, a form of hypocrisy, as so many have said and many more believe?

or as they say Aljosha A. Schwarz and Ronald P. Schwarz in his breviary The philosophical first aid kitif what the community in which we live values ​​most about us, or at least what our bosses or hierarchical superiors value most, are not our opinions, our moderation or tolerance, but rather the actions that are considered profitable, useful, quantifiable –the more quantifiable, the better–, why should we give up achievements and, if we reach them, why do we have to hide our pride and show our humblest face?

Modesty, in that context, does not seem reasonable. But it may all be a misunderstanding and that we are actually talking about different modesties.

Guided by our utilitarian desire, we have seen modesty as a means to an end. To the extent that it makes it easy, it is good, and if it makes it difficult, it is bad. Like so many things.

But the great masters never conceived it that way. For them, modesty was an end in itself. A path through which to travel and improve our life as a whole, in its most varied facets.

Aristotle placed modesty between the path of imprudencethat does not respect anything, and the shy onewho fears everything.

The modest, said the wise man, should keep from saying and doing everything and on all occasions, but must also avoid always mistrusting And all.

It is a modesty born of restraintof the realistic perception of what each one is and the evidence that there are limits that cannot be exceeded.

It is a modesty that does not depend on the importance we ascribe to ourselves, but on what is really important for each one of us.

Modesty thus conceived constitutes a way of life, a powerful inner force that impels us to work step by step, giving value to each stagein every moment, with consideration towards others and determination to overcome obstacles and setbacks.

We are not facing an ideal, extraordinary modesty, as “virtuous” as it is impossible, but rather a practical, plausible forcebecause it starts from a very simple principle, modest in its essence: everything, even the largest companies that we can conceive, can break down into smaller elements and affordable.

Leaning on them is how we grow and it is through them that some, perhaps the best among us, have reached the highest peaks.

From there, from the highest point, they have contemplated landscapes that have shaken them and that they have been able to share afterwards. But They haven’t been around long in them.

The top, as modesty teaches, is not a place to live or stay for long: it is too cold there. Then you have to get back on the road.

From Galicia to the South Pole

An example was recently given to me by the Galician Chus Lakethe mountaineer who crowned Everest without oxygen in 1999 and reached the South Pole after traveling 1,200 km solo through Antarctica.

A tough test that few human beings have dreamed of and fewer have been able to complete, because it not only requires a great physical conditionbut also a enormous mental strength to overcome extreme loneliness, lack of horizons and fear.

I asked him how he had achieved such feats and he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: “I started in the small hills of my land and one thing led to another…”

A small Galician hill and Antarctica or Everest it seems they have little to do, however the threads of Chus’s life tied them together. Step by step, he was able to face the chimera of reaching that extreme and pure point.

But even when he walked alone on the frozen continent, I wasn’t totally alonebecause he did it on the shoulders of all those who had preceded herthe pioneers in the conquest of Antarctica, whom he admired, and the many who had taught him something throughout his life.

without the othersas modesty helps to understand, there is no human adventure possible nor, of course, any success.

As La Rochefoucauld said: “Whoever says that he can renounce the whole world is wrong; but whoever says that the world cannot renounce him is even more wrong.”

Find yourself in the infinite web of life

Modesty, in this sense, also has something of offering to othersof recognition.

the bengali mystic Ramakrishna he created a beautiful image to explain it: “Trees laden with fruit lean to the ground; If you want to be great, be humble and gentle.”

No matter how high a person has risen, if only she accesses the fruits of that greatness and does not share them, they will end up rotting.

Modesty thus understood, far from being a drag that takes us to the bottom, lightens us.

It may not help turn straw to gold, but with it It’s easier to find our place in the worldsituate ourselves in the infinite plot of life and be aware of it.

The bond we have with all living things reminds us of our original modesty as a speciessomething that we easily forget and that is at the base of the another big crisis who lives our planet: the environmental

This link is so close that we have it at our fingertips. It is enough to touch the artery of the wrist to feel members of something extraordinarywhich is part of us and which transcends us at the same time.

Through our fingers we feel the heartbeatsto which we are tied since it begins to gallop in the fetus and while we remain alive.

And if we go up the current of time through that river of life, with the throbbing as background music, we will see the thousands and thousands of generations of which we are heirs and which have been necessary for each one of us to be here, at this precise moment; and the myriads of forms of life that have preceded humans: hominids, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, primitive marine beings…

All of them share with us or have shared the monotone rhythm of that muscle, until reaching that first living being that needed something similar to a heart to distribute the energy. vital fluid with which we remain connected.

It’s a story that has been written, registeredin the book that we share with all forms of life: the DNA. In the same way that our skin is registered the history of the entire universe.

When we touch it with our fingers, we notice the warm and pleasant touch of the mesh of atoms that compose it: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen… straight out of the starsfrom their collapsed hearts after an eruption of unimaginable energy that seeded and continues to seed sidereal nebulosities, creating worlds like ours or other unsuspected ones.

In the laws of the Universe, as Albert Einstein said, it is manifested an immensely superior spirit to that of man, before whom, with our modest powers, we have to feel humble.

It is what modesty teaches us: the highest goals are achieved with the smallest of steps.

Beyond false modesty

The false modesty we feel like a fraud and it bothers us.

If someone lies about their attributes, we believe that they are doing it to catch up with uswhich he considers inferior to his own, which is still a covert form of pride.

But it is also possible to think that false modesty is like a false coin: with it intends to buy something that only we can grant: the acceptance, appreciation or consideration of others.

False modesty supposes a social simulacrum that highlights the importance of modesty itselfalthough it can also constitute the first step that leads to a heartfelt and fruitful modesty.

5 qualities of a modest person

Modesty is not incompatible with pride: just weaves a delicate balance with it.

and for the same reason it is not a restrictive virtue in itself, but a way to enjoy authentic wealth.

1. Moderation

In its Latin origin, the modest was someone moderate, measured, who he did not commit excesses and knew how to contain himself to show your consideration for others.

Later, according to the origin of…