I started reading Jim Collins' Good to Great last night, and the following really made me think:
Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. - Collins, p. 1
How true is it that we don't get to what is great because we allow ourselves to be satisfied with what is good? Personally, I think there's a lot of truth to the idea. Getting to great requires sacrifices that don't even come to mind when you're getting to good.
Let's work with this idea in the context of a relationship. How often, at the beginning of a relationship, do we consciously set out to make it great? I would argue that we very seldom do and we suffer as a result. How can you know that you want this relationship to be great when perhaps you don't even really know the person all that well? That's exactly it though. You won't know if the relationship could be great if you don't pursue great from the outset, because oftentimes you'll get to good and then find it very difficult to buck old habits and make the push towards great.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating that you leave your significant other on the grounds that you have a good relationship.
What I am saying is that it's important in life to start making great a new possibility for your relationships right away. If you're in a good relationship, be it with your mother or your sister or your girlfriend or your best friend, reevaluate what you want from that relationship. If what you have is good, what would it take to get to great? You might find, and I believe that you will find, that you need to reassess everything about how you interact with that person, in order to get out of entrenched ways of being and relating, in order to work towards your ideal. In aiming for that perfect relationship, you will hit so far from successful, but also so far from where you started.
It's hard to do because good is comfortable. We all get to good and then chill, expecting great to be the foregone conclusion. It's not. Great demands sacrifices that you won't able to make unless you're committed to it.
If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. - Matthew 5:41
If your _____ asks you to walk with them one mile, walk with them two. The second mile may be nothing more than shifting your attitude as you walk that mile together, but figure out how you can accompany the ones you cherish. Great is so much more demanding than good, but it is so much more fulfilling as well. You can have a great relationship with your _____.
posted by Kris @ 9:08 AM
8 Comments:
Thank you for being the first person to comment, Suvash. That means a lot to me.
I think your comment is very insightful, and it forces me to consider practical issues. It is difficult to gauge how much goes into getting to great. As long as that's an unknown, there's imperfect information, you don't know what the opportunity cost is, and it's difficult to think of this problem as a cost-benefit analysis. In my opinion, if the expected return from great multiplied by x is higher than the almost surety of good, then it is worth the effort. Defining x is difficult, but I think it's a judgement call. What is the likelihood of achieving great if you put all your effort behind that endeavor?
Also, having considered how much effort would be required to achieve great, is the gain from good to great worth that effort, knowing that your success isn't guaranteed even if you do your best? It might not be when considering the purchase of a $200 pair of running shoes that weigh nothing and shave seconds off your mile time (versus continuing to use the pair you already own), but it might be when considering whether or not to make an effort to improve your relationship with your father, difficult though that may be.
Hope that makes sense written down. It mostly does in my head.
The main difficulty in going from good to great doesn't lie in the effort it takes, but rather in the impact it will have on your identity. Rarely do we attain good without doing some work - so I believe that if we really wanted to, we would easily be capable of making the leap to greatness.
The problem is that when going from level to level in life WE change in a huge way and that forces everything around us, and in us to have to change as well. We can observe that easily if in some aspect of our lives we have gone from bad to good. When I quit smoking for example, my identity changed, my habits had to change, my party attitude had to change... It also put me in a difficult position in relation to my smoking friends. The smugness I felt from quitting could easily have created distance between us. The change created in and around me from making one tiny adjustment in my life was so big and destabilizing, that it nearly made me go back to my old habits on more than one occasion. Quitting smoking is a relatively small change to make, and going from bad to good is almost always accompanied by the support and admiration of our loved ones.
When we have to go from good to great, in addition to having to make all sorts of adjustments in our lives, very often we have to take a step above our peers – and that can be harder than all the work in the world, because it forces us to accept solitude in a way. I’ll go back to the smoking example because it is simple: when I quit, all of a sudden, there were times when I would be left alone inside while my smoking friends took smoke breaks outside. Eventually you and everyone else gets used to your new persona, but the initial leap can be frightening.
I agree with you, Naomi. It's hard to fight the status quo because that's what your whole environment expects. And rightly so. You created your environment at some point, and although you created it without much effort, you will have to move mountains to really affect change within it.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
Albert Einstein
Could it be we are afraid of this opposition? For surely we all know it exists.
And another thing. Greatness, Mediocrity... these are relative terms. The only thing we can do is constantly reach higher, and watch our definitions change.
Kris,
when the mediocre settles for good, the mediocre probably settles for good. you can't help it.
some endangered animals will become extinct. you can't help that either.
the great, i suppose, will never settle.
I'm not sure I follow, Qudus. Are you saying that some people are intrinsically mediocre while some are intrinsically great, and that it's not so bad at all that the mediocre settle for good?
could it not be possible?
I don't think it really has anything to do with being mediocre (even if I did post that quote). I think the important thing is to be great in relation to yourself only. And in that respect, with no one else to compare yourself to - there can be no mediocrity.
I think all we can do it strive for greatness and not settle for what we know in our hearts to not be the best.
Measuring ourselves to anyone but ourselves is pointless because we are all on separate missions in life. If we are true to what is great for us alone, then I believe that the very definitions of bad, good and great will change as we grow.
I believe that if we truly aim for our own personal greatness, it then becomes easy. It's when we compare ourselves to others that we encounter obstacles on our paths. I think it really does take courage to decide to meet our highest goals, but that once we start, we realize it isn't as hard as we once thought. Take skydiving (which I have never done, btw) for example, it takes a lot of faith and will power to jump, but once you do (so I hear) the thrill is exhilarating...
Post a Comment
<< Home