EMINENT + EARTHLY
In chasing other peoples’ greatness, we lose sight of our own
Amongst all of the desires and aspirations that make us human, none pine away at our hearts more than the pursuit of greatness. It drives us to conquer nature, build empires and sail into the great unknown—no mountain too high, no dream too far.
In many ways, the search for greatness is the best of who we are: relentless, passionate, always pushing the envelope to go faster, stronger, smarter.
Further.
But in many ways, greatness is also our downfall—it mires us in pride and envy, diminishing the mountains we’ve climbed in our own lives.
It’s simple math.
There are 7 billion people on this Earth. A small handful of them will find a cure to cancer. Fewer yet will blast into orbit and view the earth from the heavens. A couple may invent something that changes our lives forever. But everyone else has a more important purpose: to love one another and live our lives as the best people we can.
That in itself is a greatness with no equal.
BEAT THE RAT RACE
Today’s fast-paced, entrepreneurial startup culture funnels the multitude of us towards a gateway of monetary success that few of us will ever pass through. Every day that we haven’t invented the next big app or moved to New York or San Francisco or marched across the stage before the cameras is a wasted chance at the big-time. Everything we read (and read, and read) reminds us that we’re at the base camp and not at the summit. That we’re working around the clock instead of making the clock work for us. That we’re climbing up a ladder that goes up endlessly.
Forget what you know about “The American Dream”. Traditional success—monetary, cultural, fame—is most often the result of privilege. It’s a place few can or will ever achieve, and yet we all strive for it. Even those that have “made it” don’t recognize it.
Forget “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps”. It’s time we ditched our bootstraps and come to love our flip flops.
HOW WE LIVE—AND NOT WHAT WE LIVE FOR—IS WHAT LIVES ON
True greatness—replete with its stress and constant yearning for more—can take its toll.
Astronomical success often comes at a cost, and the annals of history have many madmen, misanthropes and egomaniacs to prove it. There is a fatal point-of-no-return after which things become more important than people—or, even worse, people become things. Empathy is twisted into a weakness.
When greatness calls, it bids us to trade our moral compass for a mortal speedometer.
THIS ONE IS FOR MOM
My mother embodies greatness.
She didn’t invent a device that we use everyday. There will be no libraries or parks named after her. She has not amassed a personal fortune. So what, then, makes her brief existence in the course of human history notable? What is it that she possesses that is more enviable than fame, rich and power?
Love. Compassion. Dedication. She has worked as a nurse at the same hospital, in the same position for 35 years. To her, the ambition of moving up the ladder was a distraction from what she sees as her life’s purpose: to help and serve others.
She selflessly raised three children, making the same sacrifices that mothers around the world do on a daily basis. They work, teach, nurture and encourage, then still find the time to do all of that some more. It’s as if they invented an endless reservoir of time and patience.
Forget Steve Jobs. They’re the real innovators.
Future generations won’t read about them in history books. Foreign dignitaries won’t attend their funerals. Their worldly possessions will fade.
But that legacy of love—my mother’s, and all of ours—will live on forever.
Final Purchase
When we were born we had no monetary worth
but had all the breath of life within us.
On our death bed our coffers are full
but lungs empty.
So if you live in pursuit of wealth I ask you this:
What will be your final purchase?
