“If you meet a really humble man... he will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
There was once a man who ran a small auto repair shop in a town just big enough to be busy, but small enough for people to notice.
He wasn’t the best salesman. He didn’t have flashy signs or clever slogans. In fact, most people found his shop by accident. But those who stayed, stayed for good.
He greeted everyone the same—whether they were dressed in suits or stained work clothes. He listened more than he talked. He remembered birthdays. He quietly fixed things no one had asked him to. He fixed other things, too—small appliances mostly, things that may have otherwise been discarded. And he’d absorb the cost without saying a word.
People talked about him. But never in the ways he probably expected.
“He showed up when no one else would.”
“He called me back—just to make sure I got home okay.”
“He helped my son fix his bike… then gave him a better lock.”
He wasn’t perfect. He forgot things sometimes. He got tired, even cranky (That's when he knew he needed a cigarette!). But there was something unmistakable about him—something different.
He wasn’t trying to prove anything.
He wasn’t angling for influence.
He wasn’t waiting to be thanked.
He wasn’t thinking about himself at all.
One day, I asked him about it—why he did what he did, how he stayed so generous, so quietly consistent.
He shrugged and said, “I don’t know… I guess I just try to pay attention. Most folks go through life feeling invisible, and that's not good. If I can change that in some small way, why not?”
He gave a small smile, wiped his hands on an old rag, and went back to work.
This article was last modified on April 9, 2025 .
Tags
When life feels fragmented, the instinctive response is to seek better balance. But balance negotiates priorities—it doesn’t establish them. This reflection challenges the myth of a balanced life and reframes integration as the ordering of one’s life around a unifying center.
Read MoreIf division were simply a personal failure, it would be easier to correct. But it persists because many professional environments reward fragmentation—performance over coherence, output over integration. This reflection explores how division becomes normalized, even incentivized, and why individual effort alone is rarely enough to overcome it.
Read More