Too many people spend their lives imitating others rather than embracing the unique person they were created to be. "They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives." [1] They exhaust themselves trying to recreate someone else's experience, as if holiness or genius could be copied like a formula. But the truth is, "they wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems or possess somebody else’s spirituality." [1] We were never meant to walk another person's path; we are called to discover and honor our own. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God” (Romans 14:12), not of someone else’s life, but of our own.
And yet, how easily we are swept up in the illusion that conformity leads to fulfillment. "There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else." [1] People pride themselves on fitting in, thinking that the well-worn path is the safest. But what they call humility is often just fear—fear of standing alone, fear of being misunderstood, fear of failing without the validation of the crowd. And so they hurry. "Hurry ruins saints as well as artists." [1] They are desperate for quick results, unwilling to allow the slow, steady work of transformation to take root in their lives. "They want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves." [1] But spiritual growth is not an achievement to be seized; it is a slow unfolding, like a seed taking root in good soil (Mark 4:8).
True humility, then, is not found in the desperate attempt to be what others expect, but in radical authenticity before God. "In great saints you find that perfect humility and perfect integrity coincide." [1] It is a paradox, but a necessary one: the humblest person is the one who refuses to be anyone other than who they were created to be. "Humility consists in being precisely the person you actually are before God, and since no two people are alike, if you have the humility to be yourself you will not be like anyone else in the whole universe." [1] This is why the psalmist declares, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). To reject our true selves in favor of someone else’s identity is not humility—it is a form of spiritual dishonesty.
If this is true, then we must also recognize that the spiritual life cannot be a process of blindly adopting what worked for someone else. "He is able to see quite clearly that what is useful to him may be useless for somebody else, and what helps others to be saints might ruin him." [1] This is wisdom: knowing that one person’s path may not be our own. "It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not." [1] We must ask ourselves, "How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man’s city?" [1] The answer is clear—we won’t. The call to holiness is not a call to sameness; it is a call to discernment. As Paul says, “Test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
Yet how often do people think they can achieve holiness or wisdom by simply adopting external practices? "Perfection is not something you can acquire like a hat—by walking into a place and trying on several and walking out again ten minutes later with one on your head that fits." [1] Many devour spiritual books, accumulating knowledge but never pausing to ask whether what they read applies to their lives. "They devour books of piety indiscriminately, not stopping to consider how much of what they read applies, or can be applied, to their own lives." [1] But spirituality is not a matter of accumulating religious habits; it is a matter of transformation. As James warns, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22).
The same illusion extends to the way we think of sanctity in community. How often do people mistake collective validation for true holiness? "Such 'sanctity' may perhaps be only the fruit of mutual flattery." [1] In these communities, people reassure one another not by challenging one another toward true transformation, but by affirming the very prejudices that keep them spiritually stagnant. "The 'perfection' of the holy one is something that reassures his neighbors by confirming them in their own prejudices, and by enabling them to forget what is lacking in their own communal morality." [1] True holiness will always challenge the status quo; it will always demand something deeper, something more honest. “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,” Jesus warns, “for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).
And this pattern is not only seen in spirituality, but in art, literature, and every form of human creativity. People are rewarded not for authenticity, but for conforming to popular taste. "The 'best' poets are those who happen to succeed in a way that flatters our current prejudice about what constitutes good poetry." [1] Originality is feared, not because it lacks value, but because it disrupts the comfortable illusions of the masses. People refuse to engage with challenging voices because doing so would risk their own standing. "We do not dare to [read him], for if we were discovered to have done so, we would fall from grace." [1] This is the same resistance that led the prophets to be silenced, and even Christ himself to be rejected. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11).
Perhaps this is why true holiness is so often misunderstood. "One of the first signs of a saint may well be the fact that other people do not know what to make of him." [1] Those who pursue genuine transformation often find themselves struggling to apply conventional standards to their own lives. "He has inescapable difficulties in applying all the abstract norms of 'perfection' to his own life." [1] And yet, history shows that those who do not fit the mold are often the very ones most deeply attuned to the divine. "And yet the only canonized saint, venerated by the whole Church, who has lived either as a Cistercian or a Carthusian since the Middle Ages is St. Benedict Joseph Labre." [1] The path to holiness is rarely straightforward, nor is it easily recognizable to those who rely on external measures of piety. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
So, what then is the call? It is the call to authenticity. The call to slow down, to be patient with the unfolding of one’s own path. It is the call to embrace humility—not as self-effacement, but as fearless integrity before God. It is the call to discern what truly nourishes the soul, rather than mindlessly adopting what works for others. It is the call to reject the illusion of instant perfection and to abandon the safety of collective affirmation in favor of true transformation. It is the call to create, to speak, to live in a way that reflects the uncompromised truth of one’s own being. And ultimately, it is the call to accept that this road will not always be understood by others—but it will lead, at last, to the fullness of life.
[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation