From Great to Good

I saw a “motivational” poster once that read

“If better is possible, then good is not enough.”

SHENANIGANS!  I’m calling shenanigans!

I’ve been thinking a lot about that word ‘good’ lately.  We live in a society that makes “good” seem like an underachievement.  A society where being a C student somehow makes you below average.  A society where you’re expected to be a VP of Something by 35.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on ourselves, don’t you think?

Here’s the thing…there are people who are great at what they do – LeBron James, Stephen Hawking, JK Rowling, to name a few – and we should appreciate them for their skills and contributions to their particular field.  But, crikey, at the end of the day LeBron is just putting a ball through a hoop and JK is just putting words on paper.  (Hawking is doing funky black-hole / time-travel stuff that I’ll never fully understand).

QUICK QUIZ

Who are the two women in the pictures below?  (I’ll give you a hint, one of them has done so much good that she won the Nobel Peace Prize on her 18th birthday.  The other one is famous for the junk in her trunk.)

Click on the picture to learn more

Stop looking at this picture

Yeah, butts over bravery, right?

The Permission Giver

You know what I am?  Not sure how our when it happened, but I’ve come to realize that I am a fully empowered Permission Giver.  So here’s what I’m going to do for you.  I’m going to give you the permission to:

not be great

be a C student

not be nervous if you ever meet LeBron or any other “celebrity” because they’re just another bundle of carbon-based cells like you

be the last guy off the bench

buy and wear clothes from Target and Kohls

be proud of yourself for publishing your book, playing in a garage band, and sharing your artwork

not keep up with the Joneses (nobody likes the freakin’ Joneses anyway)

forgive yourself for past and future failings

be proud of trying your best, regardless of the outcome

 

BE A GOOD PERSON WHO MAKES GOOD DECISIONS AND DOES GOOD FOR OTHERS

 

I think if we can start doing these things, we’ll all be able to feel a little more good about ourselves.  🙂

 

The Middle of the Magic

Are you like me?  Do the holidays sometimes get you down because you get lost in the memories of Christmases past?

The Ghost of Christmas Past is visiting me again this year.  He’s a good ghost, well-intentioned.  He just doesn’t realize the effect he has on me.

He is reminding me of the Christmases of my childhood.  Times of pure joy and magic for me.  I was young and naive and thought they’d go on forever like that.

And he’s reminding me of the Christmases of my children’s childhood.  Times of pure joy and magic for them.  They were young and naive and thought they’d go on forever like that.

That old ghost is reminding me how things change.

Maybe you’re dealing with a change this year.  But you know what I think the Ghost of Christmas Past would say if he could really talk to us right now?

I think he’d tell us to make a little more time for the the Ghost of Christmas Present, because

that guy is always in the middle of the magic.