We just returned from a little family trip to Yosemite. I can happily report the wonders of that place are alive and well.

I go to nature to gain perspective. Whether it’s my daily routine of sitting quietly by the fire before the sun rises, or traveling to a place like Yosemite and staring up at the massive granite walls of El Capitan and Half Dome and Sentinel Rock, or sitting at the foot of the Grizzly Giant—a living, breathing Sequoia that was already a sapling when the ancient Greeks gave birth to democracy. It has lived through the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the dark ages, the enlightenment and renaissance, the age of exploration, the first Europeans who came to these shores, the birth of our nation, our so-called manifest destiny and westward expansion, and in the last 100 years, it has also witnessed the near destruction of the old growth forests it has towered above for some three thousand years.

Standing in front of an ancient creature like that speaks volumes about who we are, from the brevity and triviality of our tiny lives to the fact that once we discovered this ancient grove the first thing we did was cut a hole in one of them just so we could drive a car through it. … (sigh) … I can’t imagine anything more dangerous to our survival than our hubris coupled with our unfathomable ignorance. Which is probably why whenever I stand before these ancient beings I’m filled with both wonder and an irresistible urge to apologize.

Well, be that as it may, I go to nature to gain perspective. I go to nature to be enveloped in beauty, to be drawn out of my thoughts and into the moment, and to be dosed with what I’ve come to appreciate as the key ingredient of my success as a human being … humility.

Now, I think I have a little different take on humility than most. It’s not earth shatteringly different, it’s just that I’m about the only person I know who doesn’t think humility is really a character trait. I think it’s a choice. I don’t think you attain humility. You don’t possess it. You choose it. And one of my goals in life is now to choose it as often as I can. I want to choose it more and—somewhat selfishly I confess—I want you to choose it too.

In fact, I want you to do whatever you need to do, go wherever you need to go, put yourself in front of whatever it takes to find your humility.

I miss humility. I long for a world with more humility. Why? Because humility is not weakness. Humility is our strength. It’s a choice to admit the truth that you don’t have all the answers. That you are not right about everything. That you don’t see it all, you can’t see it all, and that most of life is so more complex than simple right and wrong, up or down, good or evil, and yes, left or right.

I’m not saying we can’t know anything or don’t know anything. I’m saying we will never know enough about anything to stop learning, we will never know enough about anyone to stop listening, and most importantly, we will never know enough to ever justify even the slightest hint of arrogance. When I see arrogance pouring out of someone, that’s when I trust what they’re saying the least. Because humility is not something we conjure out of the goodness of our own hearts. It’s something that happens to us and through us when we get close enough to the truth. Humility is proof that we’re somewhere near the truth.

So do whatever you need to do, go wherever you need to go, put yourself in front of whatever it takes to find humility. Then use it to presume less and listen more, to lecture less and learn more, to prove yourself less and grow beyond yourself more.

Do whatever you need to do, go wherever you need to go. Find humility. Choose humility.

Then use it to build yourself a beautiful li