By Simon Jacobson
One of the great paradoxes is reconciling between the individual and the collective, between personal interests and the common good. Can we find a way to preserve our diversity while being united without either being compromised?
The way to achieve this is through humility: When you sublimate yourself to a higher calling, your individuality unites with others serving the greater cause.
Your powerful commitment permeates your being to the point that it tempers self-interest, not allowing it to rip you apart from others. On the contrary, it helps build a unified community – diverse but united by a cause greater and one that transcends individual interests. Here is why the effort is worth it.
BEAUTY IN DIVERSITY
As pretty as one color may be, it still would not be defined as beautiful. As sweet as one musical note may sound, it cannot be called beautiful. Beauty is always a combination of many colors – as in a painting – whose balance and coordination creates a beautiful mosaic.
Many different musical notes, when played just the right way, generate a beautiful symphony. Take nature. The beauty of nature is in the fact that many different systems work together with astonishing synchronicity. Perhaps no better example of this is our own selves. The healthy human body is a miraculous piece of architecture. So many different organs, numerous diverse systems and faculties. Let alone the multitude of cells, hormones and DNA. And all combined as one fascinating unit, working as one synchronized whole.
Something that strikes us as beautiful is the balance and symmetry of several – or very many – different elements, all combined in just the right blend. Beauty is the harmony within diversity.
HUMILITY IN DIVERSITY
We are all one: Together we comprise a single organism whose various cells, limbs, and organs complement and complete one another.
A body includes both the sophisticated, refined brain and the “crass” functional foot; but, ultimately, the brain is dependent on the foot just as the foot is dependent on the brain. The humble man looks at the larger picture rather than the particulars, at the unified purpose of life on earth rather than only at his function within this purpose. The knowledge that his own life’s work is incomplete without his fellow’s contribution arouse feelings of humility and indebtedness toward his fellow:
DEFINING HUMILITY
In this approach, humility is not equated with a sense of inferiority. Rather, it stems from a feeling of mutual need. You recognize that your own accomplishments require collaboration with others. Be humbled by the fact that every individual on earth has a unique and irreplaceable role to play, and that every one needs all the others.
