Choosing Nobility in Daily Life

Everyone longs to accomplish something meaningful. Yet most of life is filled with small, everyday tasks that can seem insignificant. Perhaps the real measure is not the task itself, but the spirit with which we approach it. Helen Keller expressed this beautifully:

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

Even the smallest actions, when carried out with grace and sincerity, can remind us of our true purpose. The Bahá’í writings affirm this noble identity:

“Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.”

The Challenge of Criticism

It is easy to fall into the habit of criticising others. Yet Abraham Lincoln offered wise counsel:

“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”

Living nobly is easier when we have role models whose actions embody higher ideals. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá observed:

“… Spiritual philosophers … ever express their high and noble thoughts in actions.”

Without such examples, we risk sinking to the “lowest common norm.” But leadership teacher John C. Maxwell reminded us that deep within, everyone longs to rise higher:

“Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful.”

Choosing a Noble Goal

Noble living requires both effort and intention. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged:

“… make ye a mighty effort, and choose for yourselves a noble goal.”

Once chosen, the challenge is to remain faithful to that goal, remembering who we truly are. True friends help us in this journey. George Bernard Shaw wrote:

“The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.”

Shoghi Effendi explained that the best guidance comes not through words but through the power of example:

“… if the friends become embodiments of virtue and good character, words and arguments will be superfluous.”

True Nobility

Too often we compare ourselves with others, taking pride in their shortcomings. Ernest Hemingway reminded us:

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.”

This daily decision—to be better than we were yesterday—is the true path of progress. And progress finds its highest expression in service to others. Khalil Gibran wrote:

“Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave this vision of noble service:

“… strive that your actions day by day may be beautiful prayers. Turn towards God, and seek always to do that which is right and noble. Enrich the poor, raise the fallen, comfort the sorrowful, bring healing to the sick, reassure the fearful, rescue the oppressed, bring hope to the hopeless, shelter the destitute!”

Aspiration Versus Ambition

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, distinguished between ambition and aspiration:

“A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.”

To live nobly, we must set our sights on ideals greater than ourselves. Gary Hamel put it simply:

“A noble purpose inspires sacrifice, stimulates innovation and encourages perseverance.”

Such a purpose often means planting seeds whose fruits we may never see. D. Elton Trueblood observed:

“It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will someday give shade to people he may never meet.”

Awakening Nobility in Others

At times, we may wonder what difference one life can make in a world bent on selfishness. James Russell Lowell offered reassurance:

“Be noble, and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own.”

History provides shining examples. Epictetus, born a slave in Rome, rose to become a renowned Stoic philosopher. He taught:

“To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education; to accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun; to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.”

For him, nobility meant mastering one’s judgments and actions so completely that external circumstances and the faults of others no longer held sway.