Yesterday we had a guy who believes and carries himself like that, which means he carries himself, in his words, very heavily. He walks slowly. He talks slowly. He chooses certain people to talk to and many people not to talk to. He says he’s carried down by lead. That’s how heavy the guy is. He gets up out of his chair slowly. He sits down slowly. Those are all signs of arrogance, even though you may not notice it. He believes he’s something special and needs to be treated that way.
The next person is very intimidating. People think being intimidating is cool. People think it’s a display of power, and they give you all the rules about how to be: “Don’t answer everybody. Don’t be so easy with everyone.” All these things. All that is b'ga'avah (with arrogance). If someone is difficult, annoying, or hard to get ahold of, if he’s being out there in that sense, he can be nasty. You never know what you’re going to get. What are you going to get when you talk to him? That type. That’s typically a display of a degree of arrogance. It’s a sense that I need to shake the world so they know who I am. I need to be scary. I can’t just be so nice to everybody. I need to have a little bit of a sharp tongue or a sharp line or a line that no one knows. How unpredictable they're going to talk to me. Sometimes they’re going to have a good day and sometimes a bad day. All these things are different ways of planting myself down as a strong, powerful person and making people treat me that way. Again, arrogance.
Okay, and there’s a third guy. It’s unbelievable, by the way, how true these examples are, how real they are, how prevalent they are. People don’t realize it. You think you’re carrying yourself sharply because when people talk to you and call you, they don’t know what they’re going to get out of you. You’re really just displaying another way of saying, “I believe in something special.” Number three on the list is Yesh Ge'eh Acher (There is another arrogant person), 236. Yesh Ge'eh Acher, 236. He believes in his heart that he’s so special and so honorable. Yesh Ge'eh Acher, 236. Now listen to this guy. This guy’s a trickster. He believes he’s so special and so deserving of honor that no matter what happens, he’s always honored. And listen to this: Yesh Ge'eh Acher, 236.
In order to show that he feels he’s always a man of honor and doesn’t need people to help him, he does humble things because he believes he’s so special. He does the double reverse. He does humble things because he says to himself, “I don’t need people to respect me. I’m an important person.” Now, a lot of people say that’s a very nice trait. It’s a sign of confidence. True, but not if you’re doing it out of arrogance. Let’s see the words inside. He’s already so great and distinguished, and it’s impossible for honor to be separated from him. He has absolutely no need for it, and he doesn’t need anyone to show it. Therefore, he’ll perform acts like those of humble people, and he’ll go to extremes in that area to show, “I don’t care. I’m a nobody. I’ll sit in the back. Nothing matters to me.” And inside he’s full of arrogance, saying to himself, “I don’t want to do it anymore. The only thing I need to do is forego it and tell people it doesn’t matter to me, because I have so much of it already.”
If this sounds like something you can’t understand, then you don’t know real arrogance. This is real. It’s legitimate. It’s out there. It’s part of the world, where people think so much about themselves and this mindset. They say to themselves, “I think I need so-and-so to invite me. You think I need that person to stand up for me? You think I need them to recognize me? I’m unbelievable already.” Now, a lot of times, this is a midah (trait) that flows right into self-confidence. It’s hard to see that this is what it is. But sometimes this is actually a person who believes he’s so special. He’s above kavod (honor).
“I never heard of such a person.” No. No. Okay, it’s reality. People sit down. You go over there, sit in the back, and they say, “I don’t care about kavod.” Sometimes, when you’re doing that, you can’t. That’s another thing. That’s the whole thing: they really can’t. That’s for sure.
But you might say, the fourth and final guy over here—I think the fourth—is another one. This is a person we mentioned yesterday at a gathering or event who wants to be well-liked and wants to be known, and he has every, every good character trait. His arrogance calls for him to be considered by everyone. “So-and-so is a good guy. Another guy, he’s a good guy. He’s so humble.” He starts hearing people say this about him. He starts liking the idea of being well-known as a good guy. This comes into people’s heads in a second. So what does he do? He doubles down on the good-guy ways. All right. You like it. You enjoy it.
Think of kids when they’re told that they’re goody-goodies or not goody-goodies. “You’re such a nice kid.” And what happens is, you ever notice, they start to act more that way. Isn’t that a good thing? It is, but it’s not. I know a lot of good kids, and I know myself when I was a goody-goody as a kid. The more you hear in your head that you’re a good kid, the more you start to live up to your own description. And now you want to be that way—the better way. But now you’re overdoing it. You know that with kids: they overdo it. Or now you’re making sure that the teacher loves you. You ever notice? I know this because some of my kids are very wild and some of them are very passive. The ones who are always goody-goodies, the other ones can’t stand them. They can’t stand when that one is highlighted as a goody-goody because I feel like they’re doing it on purpose and trying to get credit from the parents. You can imagine that with children. Adults are exactly the same way. They just don’t show it as much.
That is, they enjoy being considered Mr. Nice Guy. They like it, so they do things that play into Mr. Nice Guy. In this example, they’re trying to be Mr. Humble. Isn’t it the opposite of the one before? It is the opposite. The first guy said, “I don’t need any credit. I’m good regardless.” That’s because I’m so good. That’s arrogance in and of itself. This person is more than that. “I need to be treated as a goody-goody. I need to be treated as a goody-goody. I need to be considered so-and-so: so humble. He’ll never get upset. That guy never cares about what people say about him.” And in his mind, he’s working this image and working this image and developing it. The level of arrogance is at the top.
Again, you may not know people this way, but I’ll tell you: you may not realize it, but you know a lot of people this way. People who try to live up to that image, who try to build an image of Mr. Nice Guy. Really, what they’re trying to do is create a perfect image of themselves. All right? This is a degree of arrogance that cannot be limited. This is the truth. All right? These are the words. It’s not enough for people to praise him for the regular gifts that he has. He wants to be considered a person about whom they’ll pile on more good comments and say, “He’s the most humble of all people.” And this person is actually arrogant in his humility. In reality, he’s arrogant in his humility, like the kid who is not nice in his niceness. He’s not really such a good kid; he just loves being called Mr. Good Kid. But you know what happens? If there’s a competition between him and another kid over who’s better, he’ll fight tooth and nail to be considered Mr. Nice Kid, right? How do you explain that? He’s a nice kid? No, he’s not. He’s a kid who likes to be on top. Right now, being nice is being on top. If being mean were on top, he’d do that too. The same thing is true with this person who’s arrogant and humble. He likes being popular. He likes being well-liked, and he knows it’s a good move to be seen as humble. People like humble people. But he’s sketching out his system. Mesillat Yesharim (Path of the Upright) says this doesn’t last. It doesn’t work out that way. Eventually, something comes up where this Mr. Humble cannot stomach his issue, and he ends up showing his true colors. Someone gets mad. Someone gets more attention for their humility than he does. And then it comes out.
But again, these are the possibilities we’re up against. We’re up against typical arrogance of carrying ourselves heavily. We’re up against arrogance of scaring other people. We’re up against someone saying, “I don’t care about anything,” kind of arrogance. And someone who says, “I need to be known as a humble guy,” kind of arrogance. These are the midot that are there. They can show up in us at any time. Our task is to identify this and say to myself, “Humility means I really am not that special. I don’t deserve more than anybody else.” That’s really humility. Not that I do, but no one knows about it, and in my own home I tell everyone how great I am, right? Or not that I’m really the best person in the world, but just that I want to carry myself with public humility. Flat out, clearly, I am not more special than anybody else in the way I come across to the world. Do I have confidence? Sure. To the roof, I do. But it doesn’t mean I deserve anything more than anyone else. That’s humility. Stop with this.