The idea of being ‘great’

What is the point of life if you don’t do great things in life ? What is the point of living without being great? As human beings we want to think that we need to leave our mark in this world by doing great things that the people will remember even if we are dead. We want to reach to the pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I am also the victim of this incessant need to be great and do great things in life. I am beginning to strongly feel that this is a dangerous and the evilest perspective of life. This perspective will bring endless miseries to oneself and others.

What is great about being great ? It is the selfish motive to impose one’s gigantic self ego and importance to other people. Family and society fill the minds of children to aspire to achieve great things. I am not against being great and doing great things. However I am against the idea to forcefully steer the minds towards greatness. This creates the unnecessary burden to life and makes us hate ourselves because for not fulfilling the expectation of oneself and society. We are ridden with anxiety in life. We undervalue and take for granted the usual, commonplace and small in your life while seeking the greatness in life. We are not being able to enjoy the moments in life. We are always chasing the elusive greatness. The need to be great makes you indifferent to other people, jealous, greedy and filled with hatred. Somehow by hook or crook we are bent on achieving the greatness.

You fret over being unrecognized, your greatness going in vain and society not giving you the due for your perceived enormous & gigantic self importance. What if you were to lose all these anxieties. The constant need to prove oneself in the eyes of others and to put up a false pretense of civilities is choking. The most liberating thing in anybody’s life is to get rid the idea of being and need to be great. Just do it and feel the exhilarating effect.

I am not saying you don’t need to have an ambition in your life. Your ambition not necessary should have a tag of greatness. I am just saying anything and everything in this world can be great. The life itself and the fact that you are breathing now is great. We are just creating this false idea of greatness where people seek it in the work they do, the money and wealth they cover themselves with and the validation they seek from other people. It doesn’t have to be that. There are so many moments in a day where we can derive joy and happiness from. However to our eyes they are too commonplace to be great. Those are the things that ultimately matter in our lives.

I like what B.P Koirala once said ‘ thulo manchhe nabannu, asal manchhe hunu ‘.