MISTAKEN IDENTITY: HUMILITY VERSUS STUPIDITY

Humility is simply the act of being humble in an ethical dimension. It means bringing down yourself to be very “small” even when you are “big”.  It is the total elimination of egoistical status. An extreme form of humility is humiliation –making you feel low in a very bad way. Humility is the opposite of pride (meekness and subdueness). A good example is the story of Mother Teresa who was a teacher in an Indian school. She gave up the comfort of the convent she was supposed to live and stayed with the poorest people on the streets, including the sick and the dying ones. These were people nobody cared about. She even helped with burial arrangements of those that could not survive or recover.

In another breath, stupidity is a when you act without intelligence or reasoning. A stupid person can be called a moron, dumb, fool or idiot. Stupidity could be innate, extreme or temporary.

Without mincing words, we humans have always confused these two acts together.  Stupidity comes in wears different patterns.

Painfully, some people have made religion the scapegoat of their stupidity in guise of humility. They seem to attach extreme spirituality to ordinary things. This is the more reason why we keep having problems all around the word. Somebody would tell you that Jesus said “if somebody slaps you on the right cheek, you give him the other side to repeat the slap. Perhaps you forgot this statement was a parable. You are a job seeker and you include in your CV that your hobby is smoking and partying all night long. It sounds funny, but this is a case of extreme stupidity. You are working in an organisation where you are being paid peanuts, no leave allowance, no promotion, abuse of position, working from dawn to dusk, no welfare package, sexual assault, no breaks, no Xmas bonus, salary delay, yet you stay put and hope to raise a family, saying: Half-bread is better than none” or “God’s time is the best”, yet you go to a corner and start lamenting. You forget you are drawing closer to retirement age. Such a person would die of diagnostic paralysis and poverty of the spirit. Why indulge in something that doesn’t add value to your life? Why do you lack in the midst of plenty? You are walking down the road with your girlfriend, carrying her bag and you justify your action with the love-is-blind cliche. Don’t be surprised if she asks you to wash her panties the next day. What an advertisement of ignorance! Such a relationship would smoulder like an inferno. 


Truth be said, we always find the right words o justify our stupidity. Why put yourself in great abjection? Why pamper pride in others? Why engage in unworthy flattery? Most of the so-called feeble-minded people turn out to be having pseudo-debility. All intellect will exhibit weakness when affective motives work in contrary. I call it CLEVER STUPIDITY. We think we are being humble, while displaying sheer stupidity. Humility should not be weakness. Being humble is not supposed to be denial of your rights, talents and gifts.  You must stand for what you deserve and display self-worth. Stupidity will always try to cling unto humility that is why there is need to have good knowledge of The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity because a stupid person will always cause damage to himself with a psychological projection. A stupid man is the most dangerous man on earth. It takes a hard lesson and experience to gain modicum sanity; it like trying to pick medals from the jaws of the devil.

In saner climes, real acts of humility are: letting someone go ahead of you in a BRT queue or at the ATM point, due to urgency and emergency; cleaning the toilet of your hotel room, even you have cleaners at your beck and call; when a footballer gives the ball to his team mate to score the goal, even when he could score from his position; a good husband who assist his wife in the kitchen or help change the baby’s wet diapers; when you credit your success to the author of a book and etcetera.

Final word: Humility will fetch you a crown, but stupidity will steal it from you.


BY: MIKEL   AYODEJI  FADEYI