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.

In the darkness, we must learn to find the light

It is a lovely day for late November. Still a warm sun and blue skies. Malta is a good place to chill these days. You do have to wear a mask when outdoors so I’m finding walks less enjoyable. There is a strange suffocating feeling that despite three weeks of practice has yet to shift. But if you sit at an outdoor café with a drink you can take your mask off and breathe in the sun and the sea. This particular café is right on the shore overlooking the sea. Quiet and well away from the busy road. The staff are what they call in Northern Ireland dour but okay. There is zero customer service apart from the wiping of tables between visitors to attempt to make the zone Covid-free. For that I am grateful! But my request for a decaf cappuccino at the counter, no waiter service here, is met with a shoulder shrug that is faintly dismissive. My uncle once described his accommodation on the island as baa – sick (basic) and somehow the pronunciation in a thick Northern Irish accent makes it sound even more rudimentary than just the word on its own. Sometimes changing the order of words can be even more effective than an accent in accentuating the power of a well-used phrase. When I was at school my friend Caroline never used the label ‘litterbug’ to describe those who dropped any litter in her presence. Instead, she would scream at the offender “bugger litter!” This was much more effective and generated a bigger response from the target of her venom.  

Mind you I’ve been conscious of how venomous so many exchanges seem to be these days when insulting language has become routine.  Watching online content even from news outlets has become unexpectedly abrasive. It seems the world has embraced extremes and whether it is politics, religious or social etiquette there’s been a coarsening that irritates. 

Even the mainstream news has invective targeting world leaders, insults traded between opposing political sides, details of sordid sins of the powerful or the perverted or those who manage to be both with equal relish. Major events worthy of a headline are relegated even if that happens to be genocide or famine. 

It is as if the media, in general, has become a grotesque Punch and Judy puppet show with sticks being brandished and insults shouted in piercing tones “Oh, no he didn’t! Oh, yes he did!” All the while in the background human suffering around the globe goes unnoticed. Centre stage are these characters that neither inspire nor uplift but leave you feeling vaguely unable to look away and strangely satisfied that you have not sunk to their low-level. When, the show stops, and the puppets are all packed away we are forced to contemplate our own endeavours and feelings. Exactly what value have we accomplished in this day? What are the relationships we have with those around us? Have we, like the puppets, become all show and tell? Fixated on the superficial and befuddled as to priorities? 

Some say there is nothing like a pandemic to focus the mind on the real priorities in life. But history tells us that just is not the case. Most major pandemics and plagues were accompanied by tidal waves of ignorant prejudice that meant minorities were targeted as scapegoats. This sickness of “othering” allows anger and despair an easy way to vent. Like the husband angry with his wife who goes outside to kick his dog in frustration. Such inappropriate responses can feel like a maelstrom that carries societies into dangerous waters.

Fortunately, there have always been heroes who held their footing in dangerous tides. They sensed the undisciplined dictates of a frenzied mass and choose a different path. 

Some paid for it with their lives like the woman mathematician Hypatia born in the 4th Century AD who was a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, living in Alexandria, Egypt, a part of the Eastern Roman Empire.  She was a great teacher and a wise counsellor much loved by pagans and Christians alike in the city.  Hypatia taught students from all over the Mediterranean at the Alexandrian school which was famous at the time for its philosophy and she lectured on the writings of Plato and Aristotle.  Two of the greatest philosophers of the age. Aristotle was Plato’s student and colleague for 20 years at the Academy in Athens.  The words of these wise stoics echo down through the centuries and still inspire respect today.  What a privilege and illumination it must have been to be educated by someone as brilliant and erudite as Hypatia on their writings.

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

Aristotle

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” 

Plato

She excelled in mathematics and was also an extraordinarily talented astronomer. Early writers recorded that Hypatia was "exceedingly beautiful and fair of form".  Unfortunately, in those dark days, there were many who were afraid of the light that Hypatia brought. A mob of religious fanatics attacked Hypatia's carriage as she was travelling home and dragged her into a church where they stripped her naked and murdered her using roof tiles, cutting out her eyeballs before dismembering her.  What an incredible loss to society at a time when her abundant skills both intellectual and compassionate were so needed. Fortunately, it is Hypatia who is remembered and appreciated by history, not the mindless zealots that took her life.

People like Hypatia remind us that behind the Punch and Judy show, with which we are all mesmerised, lie many such examples of nobility that resonate within us. They tell of human fortitude and steadfastness in difficulties. I find myself hugging the memory of such people close. They feel a safer lifeline to hold to in dark days. Most of all, because they awaken in us, our desire to accomplish something today and to reach out to those around us with more compassion and awareness. We are all here for a reason not for show. So, before we like the puppets, are put away in a box at the end of the show let’s do and say something worth remembering. In the darkness, we must learn to find the light.

“step out of the darkness into the light and onto this far-extended Path of Truth.

The Báb

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