Thread by @medicalaxioms

Most of us are whiny and ungrateful. We get more than we give and still complain about how the world is unfair to us.

We ignore all the sacrifices of people who have helped us and begrudge a little request for help from others.

(Keep reading. There’s more!)

We want to be judged by our character but feel comfortable judging others by their external traits in moment without further investigation.

We threaten and yell at people to change their behavior althoughfew among us have changed their mind under such an attack.

(Not done)

We want strangers to change for reasons we can’t articulate (or don’t even have) other than “It would make my life better if you would ___.”

Meanwhile we are too self-centered and lazy to bother making even an incremental change in ourselves.

(You’ve come this far...)

To this point you can disagree but before you press the “Tweet” button, notice you are helping me prove my thesis.

Accepting this series of statements, join me in humility. Not humiliated, or shamed. Just no longer “better than.”

Join humanity. Feel the commonness. Feel your place in the tribe. Neither chief nor servant. Just afflicted with the same, universal malady. Facing the same challenges. Imperfect in the same ways.

The people you love are similarly afflicted and forgive you every day.

The people you hate often hate you too. Their affliction mirrors yours. Any justification you can muster for making an exception to forgiving them their flaws is being used just the same against you. There are no new ways to be human.

Humility is accepting this fact.

Once you have learned and mastered you mind and emotions to the point that you hate no person; despise no trait; have no bias; love each enemy, turn a thousand cheeks, you might think you will have earned to role of saint. Better than. Superior to. No longer humble.

Biography and history show the opposite to be true. The closer you get to this inhuman place of universal love and forgiveness, the more you would respect the incredible magnitude of the effort.

“Few people have the time and inclination to get here.”

People who have moved out to this lonely empty land of not hating have a deep appreciation for the rest of us—petty and jealous, proud and dominating. We are doing what comes naturally. We are the wild type. Normal.

It’s humbling to take down my banner of righteousness and superiority. Every day it’s been run up the pole again. Always working, making progress and slipping backward.

This is the human condition. As universal as breath and heartbeat. Join the tribe. Be one among us.