It was a warm summer day when I met my friend, Ernie for lunch. He had been carrying something around with him for literally decades. I had no idea. But, when he shared it with me it would change my perspective on life.

The Note

We walked into the restaurant and were seated and we started to talk. Ernie was sharing stories about people we both knew. That’s when he pulled out the note from my Grandma Olive. At first, I didn’t get why it was important to him, or even what it was supposed to mean for me. Then he shared his story.

Ernie had come to school at the local university and my grandma and grandpa had given him a place to go and belong when he hadn’t had one. He’d spent his whole life thinking that he was an idiot, but she helped him realize that he was brilliant artistically. She was his teacher and he had done the work and gotten a very good grade in her class. On the final project, she gave him a 99%, with a 6-word note: “no one can be all right”.

Ernie handed me the note and said that he felt it was time to pass the torch.

The Lessons of the Note

He said that note had taught him a lot of lessons and it was time for me to learn some of my own. Ernie learned lessons about being right all the time, I learned something different. I learned about humility and modesty.

See, the world right now conflates the two. Humility to the world is just being a “humble” person. What does “humble” mean in this context? It means unassuming, maybe with low-self esteem, and not focused on themselves. However, that’s not the origin of humility. Humility is actually a religious word that was co-opted. It actually means having an accurate realization of one’s relationship with the divine – the universe, God, Brahma, whatever. It requires that we as individuals recognize our dependence on something greater than ourselves. Some scriptural traditions even indicate that people should consider themselves lower than the dust of the Earth because at least the dust obeys God. There is no mention of how we relate to other people. That’s where modesty comes in.

Modesty is an accurate realization of our relationship with the world around us. It requires that we acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses so that we can help others around us. That’s where that 99% comes in. We may be great, but we’ll always have our weaknesses and we’ll need help sometimes. We’ll be wise to accept it. And we’ll always have our strengths. Success comes from sharing them with others, and that’s what I do every day.

He handed it to me, and since the passing of my grandmother, it is one of the most precious things of hers that I own. It’s like I have her fun, spunky spirit there with me, reminding me about my need to have faith and rely on God and to always be vulnerable enough to ask for help when I need it and offer to help where I can.

Don’t Give Up The Ship!