In Buddhism there are levels of wisdom like glasses that help you see clearer and clearer until you are enlightened. It got me thinking about the way we sometimes cling onto our current level of understanding of something and avoid learning more because it might undermine our current thoughts on whatever it is.
This is the Ego getting in the way of wisdom. The Ego does not want to be proven wrong, as this would undermine it’s sense of self importance. As strong as the Ego may appear to be it is fragile. When another person or the world undeniably proves the Ego wrong it hurts and it can feel a little broken. The antidote to this is humility, the act of asking what the correct thing is in order to learn and grow. It is being open to being wrong.
The core belief, therefore, has to be that learning is life long and we don’t know all the answers all the time. We become students of life for life. Humility is not weakness, it is a strength, which seems contradictory to what our culture tells us. The problem with culture here is that it promises to reward the Ego with money, success and material things. We may even receive these things, but they only feed an unquenchable thirst for more of the same, and when we don’t receive them our Ego hurts.
It is better to be humble, as this develops resilience to the wins and losses of life and on balance leaves us happier.
The Fullfilment Project 