Imagine yourself at your very best. Imagine your potential is no longer something you wish you had developed. You have in fact already developed it. Does that make you comfortable? Or how does it make you feel?
Personally, I know it gives me comfort to think I cannot be what I would like to be. Because then I can say something like this: “Oh, it is too bad that I am stuck in my circumstances. Just think what I could be if things were different.”
I probably do this because it is scary to imagine I could in fact become something great. Not just great in my dreams, but great in real life.
And then I stumble upon Josef Pieper’s definition of virtue. Listen: “Virtue is the utmost of what a human can be.”
Here is the deal about virtues. Applying them means training our appetites in one way or another. For instance, if we want to apply the virtue of hope, then we must train ourselves in two ways. 1) We must stop thinking nothing good will happen in the future. 2) We must begin thinking the future holds good things.
In other words, it is painful to apply the virtues. Because we must bring death to the bad us and bring life to the good. In the case of the virtue of hope, this means killing our despair and nurturing our hope.
But why not take “the pain of killing the bad in us” over “the pain of feeling stuck in our circumstances”? I mean, either way, our choice will hurt. Please ask yourself that question, and then tell me, are you choosing the pain of feeling stuck because you fear becoming someone great?
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(Photo: Chrisjohnbeckett)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I am definitely afraid of being great. Any time I come even slightly close to being great, I feel like a poser and a phony. And I don’t want to be found out.
Besides, once you have been great once, people will expect you to continue being great. My husband and I were recently talking about Einstein. He was great - brilliant - but later in his life he strove to have more brilliant insights about the universe, but they just weren’t there. How frustrating!
I wonder if never-was-great is better than used-to-be-great?
You’re right! Interesting what you say about Einstein. There’s a thornbird aspect of life. Maybe each one of us only has one thing to accomplish.
I bet we’ve all had that experience of doing something great and then we want to repeat it but can’t. That’s frustrating. But imagine a world where we knew how to be great. We would be so full of ourselves.
Being great is a gift. But, and here’s what I think: if we could learn to become better at not striving, but relaxing in the deep hope that being great will be given to us as we move forward, then maybe we would become great WITHOUT being full of ourselves.