We choose our world. Plato suggested humans select a life prior to birth, then live it in a state of amnesia. Perhaps that’s true, but that’s not the point of this essay. For the moment, consider the inner experience. When you think about it, doesn’t what happens inside our brains have a bigger influence on our contentment than what happens outside? And aren’t the two more separate than we appreciate in day-to-day life? Even though the environment constantly touches our senses, and so shapes our minds, it is not hard to make a distinction between the inner world and the outer one. And it’s the inside that makes us happy, or drives us insane.

Somewhere ‘out there’ sits the cosmos. It consists of things we call ‘matter’ and ‘energy’. Outside of our minds, substances and forces move, fluctuate, and interact. We have good scientific descriptions of how this works, but we don’t experience it directly. All we have access to are the patterns of nerve signals that enter our brains by way of nerves. These nerve signals come from complex sense organs such as eyes and ears. They also arrive from scattered sensory cells (in our skin, organs, and tendons) that provide our sensations of touch, bodily condition, and movement.

It takes effort, but try for a moment to fully acknowledge these facts about the separation between the mind and the physical world. Scientists and philosophers debate about the nature of the ‘self’ that makes use of incoming data. But even without understanding the ‘self’, it is helpful to grasp that our minds depend on sense organs for contact with the universe. Sensory systems are the windows through which we view our lives.

Humility too often sounds like a dirty word in our culture. It goes against the dominant values of competition, self-promotion, and egotism. Prominent figures seldom exhibit anything like it. Sometimes we see weak attempts at false modesty, but only rare and special leaders are truly humble. The Dalai Lama comes to mind, but not many others.

This is unfortunate. Humility not only fosters cooperation within society, it promotes mental health. Alcoholics Anonymous has figured this out, and of course most spiritual systems advocate against excessive pride. But as a general principle of psychiatric wellness, we seldom hear of it.

The problem is that people misunderstand the word. We hear talk about the importance of self-esteem, and we suspect humility implies lack of belief in oneself. But the truth is we can’t be genuinely humble without first being confident of our worth. We all understand that the people who talk themselves up the most are often the ones who feel the most insecure. The converse, also true, is less well known. Those who feel more love and respect for themselves have less concern about proving themselves to society.

Acceptance is key. Depression, anxiety, and many other mental states that people dislike become less troublesome with acceptance.

Our inner and outer circumstances at this instant cannot be altered. We can make decisions to change what happens next, but the current moment is already …