Humble Pie

I'll try and make this quick, but knowing me, I don't know if that is possible. I recently picked up another job working at Radio Shack. I will say it is very very difficult for me to learn new practical things. I feel as if I should know everything right off the bat, especially since I went to college and most of my co-workers have not. It is truly humbling. I feel almost glad when I go to my other job in the evenings over at Starbucks. I feel glad when I can sit down at my computer and type up blog posts. I do not feel glad in the morning when I have to face approximately four hours of telling people, "I just started here, let me go get the manager."

We have just hired two new people at my Starbucks as well. I recognize the same deer-in-the-headlights-look I had when I started there. I try and tell them not to worry (or as the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has written in big friendly letters: Don't Panic), but there is bound to be some small degree of anxiety. It is odd to feel both sides of the problem of the anxiety and fear of newness. I try always to be understanding of new people when they start a job, but I am merciless on myself and it has only been recently that I have ditched my self-deprecating humor and constant apologizing.

We human beings don't like to make mistakes. We like to think of ourselves as terribly self-sufficient even if we know that this notion is a lie. I really learned a lot the other day when I was talking to a man who came in to buy something at Radio Shack. (I forget what he bought, so don't ask.) I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me that he did odd jobs. I told him that I could imagine that would be really difficult learning new jobs all the time. Then I smiled because he helped me realize something, none of us can ever learn anything without humility. It cannot ever happen. We have to come to the conclusion that our knowledge is insufficient or our skills are insufficient for tackling whatever it is we wish to face.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately. Humility is something that I have always sort of taken for granted. I hear about humility in my faith and I ask for it because I am supposed to ask for it, but who really wants to be humbled? Apparently the Devil in Milton's Paradise Lost utters that it would be better to "reign in hell than serve in heaven." That is our feeling too. We'd rather live lives of mediocrity than take the chance of feeling inadequate. It is humbling to admit to ourselves and others that we aren't the best. But if we are honest, there are worse things than being humbled. In fact, humility is not such a bad thing after all.