Toward A Great New Year

A few weeks ago a little thought dropped into my mind: Being good can never take the place of being great.

When I think of "good," I think of it in terms of bad, good, and great. "Good" seems more of not something. Like, he’s a "good" person because he’s not an alcoholic or a wife­beater or a thief. He isn’t bad, so he’s good.

But being good can never take the place of being great.

Some, I know, would consider even aiming for greatness as being some sort of selfish ambition. It can be. It is also the only thing worth aiming for. Why should you be merely a good lover, rather than a great lover, when "the greatest of these is love"? Why not aim for being a great mom, instead of just a good one? If you’re going to bother living, why not reach for a great life? Is there any acceptable excuse for being mediocre?

Others may say that goodness is a stepping stone to greatness, but I beg to differ. Peter was a good man all the while he was following Jesus, but it took his own personal worst—denying that he knew Jesus—to propel him to greatness. Job was a good, rich man, but he lost everything before he could become great. It wasn’t "the son of Pharaoh’s daughter" who led Israel out of Egypt, it was a shepherd. The hotdog favored son did not save his family and most of the known world from starvation; it was a man who had spent years in prison who did that.

Let’s look at it this way: who is most likely to become filthy rich, the boy whose father makes seventy thousand a year, or the boy whose father makes twenty­five thousand a year? It’s the kid from the slums who has the most to gain by leaping in with both feet and reaching for the stars. He has nothing to lose, either.

I know an individual a few years younger than I am who is on the verge of getting involved in something that is pretty high risk. Those of us on the outside are biting our nails, thinking, and sometimes saying—at least to each other—"don’t you know what you’re getting into? Don’t you know how much that’s going to hurt?" We’re not even being pessimists. It will hurt. A lot.

So what?

What harm has ever come from a little pain? Or, for that matter, a lot of pain? Truth is, anyone whose life has become anything worth anything can tell you that they’d have gotten nowhere without pain.

Both for ourselves and for others, we lean towards goodness, rather than greatness, because between goodness and greatness is death of some sort. We’d do anything we could to protect those we love from having the opportunity to be great—though we haven’t a clue that’s what we’re doing.

In this year ahead, let’s change our tune.

Let’s go for the gold.

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