Let Yourself Be Humbled

King Solomon was passing through the countryside one day. The animals came to pay their respects, all but one blind ant, who continued his work of carrying clods of dirt across a field. Solomon asked the creature why he hadn’t stopped to honor the royal procession. “I wanted to, Your Majesty,” the ant replied, “But I’m in love with a she-ant, whom I promised I would build a home for.” “And where’s your beloved now?” Solomon asked. “I don’t know,” replied the ant. “I am blind.” “Blessed are you among creatures,” Solomon said. “For you understand the true meaning of love.”

We think of love as some great, exalted state. But true love requires becoming as small as an ant. To love something or someone, you have to pass not just through pain and disappointment, but through invisibility: times when you will not be recognized or rewarded for your efforts. To love is to allow your mission on earth to become narrower, more defined, and to understand, as the years go by, that we’re really only here to do one or two small things, but to do them well.

Let yourself be humbled. Being humbled is half of life. Do you want to miss out on half of life? Do you want to wake up for just fifteen minutes of fame, like a drunk fan passed out in the bleachers, who comes out of his stupor only when he realizes the Jumbotron is pointed at his groggy, bloated face? Or do you want to play on a field where, every day, you will be overthrown by greater and greater things, where, every day, you will experience being wrong, foolish, and irrelevant? Only you can choose.

In Zen, there’s a saying, “After the ecstasy, the laundry.” You’re going to have to get better about doing the laundry. Stop chasing peak moments. Stop judging yourself for the valleys that always come. Leave behind the fantasy that there could ever be a break from your labors. As you do, your eyes will open. Leonard Cohen said it best: “To every heart, love will come. But like a refugee.”