Brian Johnson explains why the Roman phrase 'sic transit gloria' (all glory is fleeting) matters for building purpose and fighting pride. A story about Roman emperors shows how humility lets you grow. Johnson draws on William Damon's work on what makes life meaningful.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on Sick Transit Gloria. It's inspired by Noble Purpose by William Damon. One of my favorite ideas from the book, Sick Transit Gloria means all glory is fleeting. Get this. William Damon talks about the fact that humility is incredibly important for cultivating a sense of noble purpose, right? And it's basically our number one virtue in character development and noble purpose development, which is the number one antidote to the number one vice, which is pride. Deadly sin, perhaps the greatest deadly sin. Why is pride the deadly sin or one of the deadly sins? Because pride, when we think we are just so awesome and everything about us is phenomenal, is the opposite of humility, which is required to see how we can improve and to see how we aren't perfect and we aren't right all the time. You need humility in order to grow, in order to optimize, in order to actualize, to be able to be honest and say, I've got areas to improve and this is what they are, and this is the work that I'm going to do.
If you have too much pride, you're not going to do that right?
Now, what's cool is, and I love this story. To bring the point home, imagine the most powerful person in the universe, right? They need humility as well. And the Romans got this at the height of the Roman Empire. Imagine the emperor cruising around, right? That's his sweet hair and little olive.
Whatever that thing is he wears in his head, right?
He's cruising around and the crowds are just cheering him on, and he's just basking in their glory, right? And he's got an advisor who sits in his chariot with him and whispers.
Something in his ear, right?
When everyone's at the height of their cheers for him and he's feeling pretty good about himself, his advisor whispers this. Sit transit gloria. Sit transit gloria. All glory is fleeting, Mr. Emperor. Remember that in the big picture, you mean nothing. This glory you're experiencing right now, fine, enjoyed a little bit, but it's fleeting. It's going to go away. You are going to die. You are just a tiny little, microscopic drop of nothing in the big, big picture of the universe and in history.
That's one way to cultivate humility.
Sic transit gloria. Whatever glory we're feeling for our lives, whatever sense of.
Of passion we're feeling for life and.
Pride that's building, we want to be able to temper it. William says we'd all benefit from having this little advisor.
This sweet little head thing would Be pretty cool too.
We'd all benefit from having this guy or girl whisper Sick Transit Gloria in our ears. So remember the power of humility. Get excited. Be proud of what you're accomplishing, but not overbearingly. So have the humility to say, look, this is what I need to work on and this is what I'm going to do to work on it. Humility is extraordinarily important in our path to character, in our path to noble purpose.
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