This blog writing gets to me sometimes.

I enjoy it, but it carries a quiet question every time I hit “publish.” Do I really know what I’m talking about? And more importantly, does anyone care?

“ Ted’s Head ” suggests there’s something of value rattling around up there. That’s a bold assumption.

I’m not a literary giant or brilliant mind. I’m just a guy looking at the world — at what’s interesting, perplexing, sometimes ridiculous — and trying to apply a little common sense. I’m not selling certainty. I’m hoping someone reads a piece and says, “You made me think.” That’s enough.

But there’s a wrinkle.

Praise feels good. Too good. It makes you feel relevant. Important. We all want to matter. And that’s where humility begins to wobble.

I’ve been thinking about arrogance lately. If you’ve read me for a while, you know it’s the trait I find most abhorrent — that inflated sense of self-importance, the entitlement, the quiet (or not so quiet) contempt for others. It’s everywhere.

Watch sports. The Olympic hockey finals were a perfect example. By most measures the U.S. was outplayed by Canada. If not for our goalie making superhuman saves, it might have been 6–1. I almost felt sorry for the boys to our north. Almost.

Contact sports thrive on bravado — trash talk, glares, chest pounding. It’s theater, sure. But it reflects something deeper: It’s about me. About us. About winning.

And then there’s politics. I’ll tread lightly. Let’s just say humility rarely headlines a campaign speech. Admitting error is treated like weakness. Compromise is surrender. It’s a zero-sum game — I’m right, you’re wrong, and the other side wears a capital L for Loser.

We see it in boardrooms. In Congress. On fields of play. Maybe in our own mirrors.

Are you ever smug? Excessively self-satisfied? A little too pleased with your own cleverness? I am. It sneaks up on you. Success can feel earned — and maybe it is — but it can also feel deserved. That’s a dangerous leap.

Which brings me to something less comfortable.

Are we all equals?

Not in talent. Not in wealth. Not in influence. The Pope does not live like I do. Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, Musk, Trump — they don’t operate on my plane. And none of us operate on God’s.

But in fragility? In mortality? In the fact that we arrived here by some cosmic lottery ticket I call the “lucky sperm club”?

Now we’re talking.

I did work hard. Most of us do. But the right schools, the nurturing home, the lucky breaks — they mattered too. I could just as easily be sitting around a fire in Siberia or Sudan. That’s not false modesty. That’s math.

Real humility isn’t pretending you’re small. It’s recognizing how much of your story you didn’t control.

And then there is hospice.

I walk into a room and see someone lying in that bed, and I think: That could be me. Not metaphorically. Literally. I listen to stories far tougher than mine. More complex. More painful. When they let me in — when they trust me with their fear or regret — I feel something shift.

You cannot stand beside someone at the edge of life and feel superior.

You feel smaller. Quieter. Grateful.

People sometimes tell me I’m special for doing this work. I get embarrassed. I just happen to know how to do a certain thing, and I’m grateful I get to use that ability. That’s all.

Humility, I’m beginning to think, isn’t thinking less of yourself.

It’s understanding that whatever you’ve achieved sits on a mountain of luck, help, timing, and grace.

And it’s remembering — especially when the applause comes — that someday someone will be standing beside your bed.

And they will be thinking,
“That could be me.”

As Always

Ted The Great

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