Being good in a world of greatness

From reading the title, I’m guessing you'd be wondering what it actually means. Compared to the more banal classifications of being right/wrong or good/bad, the comparison between being good or great at something isn't that straightforward to understand. Our world is such a vast, diverse place, advancing forward in the various fields of technology, healthcare, education. Humans are constantly striving to break through their boundaries and achieve the impossible. You see personalities such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai making headlines and expanding horizons while you look at yourself: spending time binge watching sitcoms on Netflix, blindly following your academic curriculum, effectively doing nothing new and nothing innovative. Many of us may feel this exact way, belittled in front of all the greatness life has on show for us. All of us are good at one thing or the other and we all have the required talent to expound on our interests but most of us are stuck at this very point, we are still just aspiring, never really there, never really great.

Good is the real enemy of great. The problem with being good is that the moment we realize we are good, we tend to settle for it. Our wallpapers may be broadcasting the Never Settle Motto but our minds aren’t. It’s not that we don’t wish to go further and push forward, it’s just natural human tendency to keep looking back at what we have accomplished. If you take a man who has only seen a pond in his life, he would consider the pond to be the largest water body. Once he goes out and explores, he finds a lake which is way larger than the pond he knows. If he decides to go further and adventure through the dangerous forests amidst perilous animals, he would be able to discover the large sea and the vast ocean. After discovering the ocean, the size of his pond becomes insignificant. But, if the man does not try to leave behind his pond and adventure through the dangerous forest, his pond is all he knows his entire life.

We must not get stagnated in our little pond of success and wade out into the ocean of greatness.

We are ever ready to complain about our shortcomings, blaming fate and time to be the ones responsible but deep inside, each of us know that we ourselves are to blame for our state and crime of not nurturing our talents.

The truth is, great men are those who never look back at what they have achieved, rather look forward to what they haven’t. They are the ones who feel excited to meet new challenges not intimidated by them. They are the ones who do not understand the concept of a comfort zone as success and comfort are two things that cannot exist at the same time.

Great men are the ones ready to take the risk, the ones who just don’t play the odds but also play the man.

They believe in the concept of smart work because a small amount of work at the right place and the right time yields the required result in a quick and efficient manner.

Another important problem in this journey from good to great is the fact whether we know what we are truly passionate about. One will never succeed in this journey if he isn’t passionate about the work he is trying to do.

We must ask ourselves the questions, “Does the work I do bring me happiness?”, “Do I feel the need to push further to achieve?”

Your passion can keep changing along the course of your life and you must change accordingly too.

Let me end by quoting an anecdote from one of my all time favorite books Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

The great gull advices Jonathan, “You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.” 

These lines have to be internalised by each and every one of us to help us move up the ladder from good to great.