I grew up Christian, and among Christian young people a common question was "What's God's plan for my life?"
In that context, I came across Micah 6:8 which spells it out about as plainly as you'll find anywhere:
"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
That seems like a standard that everyone can get behind. It gives you a standard by which to measure how well you're living, but your options remain open to do whatever you want as long as you do it justly, kindly, and humbly.
Thanks for your comment. I have enjoyed reading through these comments but I can't consider my own 'what could have been' without considering that which is outside of my self, namely God. My own beliefs do not see this life as the end. Therefore my present actions are shaped by my future hopes. I hope some day to be rewarded by God for my actions today. This seems more important to me than thinking about how my past actions may have made me more successful today. Many of the great moments in history were defined by men and woman giving up their lives for what they hoped for in the future. Not what they hoped would have happened in the past.
In my mental model it's implied, since people are the image of God and so being humble towards them is being humble towards God (and I'm not sure there's a context where humility exists independently of other people).
Humility is also useful when alone. I think X is true but let me double check can easily save your life irrespective of a belief in god or the presence of other people. Using a checklist before flying for example is an important recognition of your imperfection. Measure twice cut once is again the same idea.
Yes, something along this line occurred to me after posting, but I'd agree with you. Integrity is also arguably a case where humility can come into play even when people don't notice.
The idea is that everyone has unifying motivations, often in a higher power, where they derive their personal sense of morality from. Whether religion, family, tradition, survival, knowledge, the invisible hand of the market, a love of humanity or life for its own sake, sheer pleasure, whatever.
The point is that regardless of the original intent of the Judeo-Christian text, it seems an admirable enough message that can be recontextualized easily enough to fit those of different ethical and theological viewpoints on this forum. No hair-splitting or holy wars necessary.
The allusion to Alcoholics Anonymous is that the “acknowledging a higher power” step, while commonly assumed as pushing crypto-Christianity, can be reinterpreted by each individual participant as their own unifying motivator.
The paradox of twelve steps is that you are supposed to consider yourself at powerless and submit to your higher power yet at the same time every failing is only down to you and resets all progress.
I make no claims about the program as a whole, I was just dropping a reference to another situation where people ascribe religiosity to a reference to god or higher power that could easily be secularized, if preferred, for the sake of personal development.
The Christian POV is basically, "it doesn't matter how bad your life is because it will be great in the after life". In other words the good parts are ahead, period.
But if you don't believe then there is no guaranteed good parts ahead and the line above has no meaning.
I grew up Christian, and among Christian young people a common question was "What's God's plan for my life?"
In that context, I came across Micah 6:8 which spells it out about as plainly as you'll find anywhere:
"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
That seems like a standard that everyone can get behind. It gives you a standard by which to measure how well you're living, but your options remain open to do whatever you want as long as you do it justly, kindly, and humbly.