Arrogance: Breaking It Yourself

Arrogance has to be the greatest pain one can inflict on one's self, the biggest obstacle one can put in one's own path, and the most difficult personal failing one can attempt to address. As I sit in the stillness of a summer dawn, birdcalls and intercity bus horns (and the softly playing Ghost Trio) slicing through the dim air, it strikes me as a good thing to write about. A good thing to remind myself of.

All of us aspire to a broader canvas, a better life, a brighter, warmer, safer nest. That is at the core of our evolution, of our survival. The tools to get there are provided by nature - in the form of intellect, reason, physical ability, etc. I will never forget the words of my friend, Joseph, the man who walked on fire by mistake, when I expressed wonder at how he mastered the art of sewing/stitching in a few hours. He said, "God gave me hands, and God gave me a brain. There is nothing that cannot be achieved."

Man "dicovered" fire. Man created wikipedia. Image of Discovery liftoff from wiki commons.

This very ability - to overcome challenges and achieve anything, a virtue that we should be grateful for - becomes for most of us, the foundation of false pride and arrogance. We forget that each step we have taken to get where we are today has been possible only through the collusion of a million different factors. Starting from the attachment displayed by my mother (and father) on my birth, to the zillion times I have strayed and tested fate, to the opportunities that have found me - if one reflects on what has gone into making this "me," one can only be amazed at how insignificant our own role has been. I have been coaxed, nudged, rapped on my knuckles over and over by a million different protective forces before I learned even the basic lessons of social behavior. One can only guess at how much input goes into shaping thinking, personality and intelligences.

Strangely, this realization is largely kept hidden from us. This is part of the cosmic April Fool joke. We are given what we perceive as free will, only so that we can sculpt our destruction. We are given just as much choice to build upwards as we are to bring that edifice crashing down. Having been in the "business" of helping people (little time in the conventional "helping" profession and much more time in the "training" profession), I have seen this happen to everyone without exception. The best example, of course, is my self.
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