Welcoming in the New Year in the midst of such challenging times inspires me to look back at 2020 with an eye toward important lessons learned. One I keep focusing on is humility, and no wonder! Trying to combat a virus for which we have no immunity that continues to spread like wildfire has humbled our entire species. The United States has been particularly humbled as we face the deadly repercussions of being so ill-prepared and highly polarized, with our inequities and dysfunctions laid bare. As a nation and as individuals, we’re being forced to confront our extreme vulnerability.

On the upside, humility is a positive attribute that can increase our awareness of our interdependence with all living things. It’s an essential ingredient for bridging our vast divides, because humility means neither overestimating ourselves nor underestimating others, and encourages us to be curious and more open to other people’s perspectives. Implicit in humility is the awareness that we, like everyone else, have both strengths and weaknesses, and that our knowledge is always partial and limited. As my wise father said, “Knowing that we don’t know is the beginning of wisdom.”

The opposite of humility is arrogance, which is all about pride, superiority, self-importance, egotism, cruelty, and condescension—qualities far from the empathy, open-mindedness, and open-heartedness we desperately need right now.

Thinking about the gift of humility made me remember the song “Humble and Kind,” an award-winning hit released by county music star Tim McGraw four years ago in January 2016, another highly charged and contentious time. Written by Lora McKenna, the song started as a list of advice and life lessons McKenna wanted to impart to her five children. In addition to urging them to stay humble and kind, she instructs them that “bitterness keeps you from flying,” “don't take for granted the love this life gives you,” and “when you get where you’re going turn right back around and help the next one in line.”

This song was hugely popular in both “red states” and “blue states”—an example of the power of music to help people find common ground. The video features beautiful footage from Belief—Oprah Winfrey’s seven-part television series that explored faith and spirituality from around the world. Oprah said that at the heart of her endeavor was the sentiment expressed by the late Maya Angelou when she wrote, “We are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike.”

In 2020, I was also humbled by the amazing facts I discovered about the universe as I immersed myself in learning about astrology. Almost too mind boggling to imagine, a 2016 study estimated that the observable universe contains two trillion galaxies. Just our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains minimum 100 billion stars and at least that many planets! While down here on Earth, it’s all too easy for humans to focus on the ways we are unalike, when we view our particular lifeform from the perspective of the unfathomably large universe, our beliefs, nationalities, and the variations in our appearances seem quite inconsequential.

I pray that 2021 is a year in which our perspectives widen and humanity wakes up to the essential truth of our interconnectedness, interdependence, and the importance of cooperatively caring for each other and for our home—planet Earth.

With wishes for health, healing and happiness in the New Year!

Myra

Usher in a Happy New Year—Join our Live Circle of Light this Tuesday!

To help usher in a New Year of healing, hope and happiness, Myra and Hilary Nicholls are convening a live Circle of Light on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021, at 5:20pm PST. We hope you will join us and to invite your friends by sharing this registration link. Thank you!