Today, I read an essay by Brian Doyle that appears in his book One Long River of Song. It is about humility, which he compares to the “Final Frontier.”

There were a few sections that stood out to me and felt particularly timely. It was one of those times where I was grateful that I read something when I did—one of those times where you just know the timing couldn’t have been any more perfect.

You cannot control anything. You cannot order or command everything…You cannot be sure you will always be employed, or healthy, or relatively sane. All you can do is face the world with quite grace and hope you make a sliver of difference…You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow.

Then later in the essay:

I think, if we are lucky, if we read the book of pain and loss with humility, we realize that we are all broken and small and brief, that none among us is ultimately more valuable or rich or famous or beautiful than another; and then, perhaps, we begin to understand something deep and true about humility. This is what I know: that the small is huge, that the tiny is vast, that pain is part and parcel of the gift of joy, and that this is love, and then there is everything else.