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Today's
Meditation:
When
we look at great people in the world, it's easy to think
that there's something very special about them as people,
something that "sets them apart" from the rest of
us. After all, they've accomplished much more than the
rest of us have achieved, it seems, and they're in the
public spotlight in ways that the rest of us never will
be. There must be some sort of gift that they've been
given that makes them great, that makes them able to achieve
greatness.
But
in my experience, I see more and more that we confuse fame
with greatness, public notoriety with accomplishment.
Just because someone is in the public eye constantly doesn't
mean that a person is great, and just because a person isn't
in the public eye doesn't mean that he or she is not great,
or is not accomplishing great things.
If
we're to accomplish great things, it seems that John Ruskin
has a wonderful perspective that can help us to learn how to do
so: allow greatness to work through us, rather than
trying to pull it out of ourselves. If we can do this,
we can allow ourselves to work with the world, to make
ourselves conduits through which some very important things
can happen. Life is a powerful force, and we all
experience it every day, but how often do we put our sense
of self aside and just say, "Okay life (or God, or
whatever force you think can work through you), do your
thing, and use me to accomplish what you need to do!"
Life
can use us, but only if we allow it to do so. Life can
be something special, but only if we open ourselves to the
specialness. If we open our eyes and our hearts to the
people and the world around us, we can truly reach for
greatness, even if we never gain notoriety or fame.
True greatness doesn't need to concern itself with whether or not
other people are looking, or how many people are looking.
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