It is OK if you are mediocre.

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Fishman

Gordon, thank you for this post. This is (in my opinion) the most profound post yet...ANYWHERE...on the net. And I think you are absolutely right on target....Gary Vaynerchuk mentions this very thing often in his FB posts. In his own way of course...but the underlying message is the same. And I firmly believe this very thing is THE ROOT cause of many problems for a lot of folks. A really good movie that shows this about "us"...those "seeking"....success...."the GOLD"....is The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman....book was better as always...but the movie was pretty dang good.

Thank you again.

Fred

Socrates. One of my favs. And Millman's too, his spirit guide in THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR. I think his EVERYDAY ENLIGHTENMENT is one of the better books out there on personal growth. He chose to use 12 Gateways, and it is a well written book. I haven't seen the movie, but I'll look for it.

Over the years, I've talked with hundreds, if not thousands of people who have this little DEMON in the back of their minds, it is the demon of WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN. And it is a nagging, a recurring poke in the I with the sharp stick of perceived failure. I wonder who came in second or third at the Trampoline championships? Are they failures because they didn't win?

Does their defeat haunt them as much as Millman's Socratic dreams in his book?

It is attributed to George Bernard Shaw on his deathbed, when asked:
“What would you do if you could live your life over again?"

He replied:
I’d like to be the person I could have been but never was.


I think almost all of us live with some variation of that. The exceptions are the guys who don't make mistakes, are always right, and can't ever lose...you know, the Trumps of the world.

But there are others, who truly took the path less traveled and this brings up an aside, before I continue.

Robert Frost wrote a poem; THE ROAD NOT TAKEN. It might be the most quoted poem in all of self-help, self development and one of the most used by marketing gurus. I find that ironic.

The marketer, who sells his products the same way thousands of other marketers do, who certainly did not hack away the briar bushes or the brambles down the path less traveled, but they,

FOLLOWED the 8 lane super highway of concrete, tested and proven marketing roads to their success...I get a laugh at how they think the Frost poem fits them.

They really believe they took the road less traveled. HA!

Anyhow,

The people who do take the road less traveled are living in the present and being great at being an average and ordinary guy. They are not maketers, gurus, or cult leaders. They don't write books, do seminars nor have you walk on hot coals.

They go to work. Raise their families. They are present IN their lives, not offering advice to others on how they should live, but demonstrating by quiet grace, with their own EXAMPLE.

I know they are out there, and you won't read about them in a book, or see them on TV, and they will never be known outside of their small little worlds, but you will see a mile long procession of people they influenced when they are gone and on the way to their graves.

Anyhow, I'll have more to say on this later.

But, just as it is OK to be mediocre, it is OK to pursue your own ideas of what your life will mean. I don't know how to measure greatness, or how bad-ass someone is, or how important a life is or was.

So, follow whatever dreams you have, just be aware of how those ideas got put into your brain to begin with, and how influential they are in your everyday life.

More to come.

GordonJ