Every day that you (anyone, for that matter) actually do something is truly an achievement. With that award, I begin this article. Reality is not one or the other, it comes down to who we are and what we genuinely do.
This is an article about how to do things genuinely, so I won’t beat around the bush.
Some people are like a caricature of Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg when it comes to doing things genuinely with a thousand steps to avoid real work and end up doing more work than if they hadn’t. They are real life pitiful poor players in the game of life.
Some other people are direct and work well, work efficiently and are very direct in their approach. These are the good players in the game of life that are worth saving and appreciating, their brilliance gets things done, not only in the sense of reputation, but in genuine action that makes sense of it.
Some other people become great. What do I mean by being cool? The great is above the good, just as the good is above the poor and the repentant. I put great in this category, because realistic greatness is a powerfully earned condition where that rare mastery is really achieved. Sure, the good is the good and the poor is the poor, but that’s common. When I say great, I mean Steph Curry and Michael Jordan-type basketball dominance, not just Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest/Metta World Peace good at slapstick, just doing the work to end this paragraph with a logically usable metaphor.
When the day-to-day reality of getting things done is great, things are genuinely taken to the “next level of reality” and not just the average good or the common poor. Sure, all the conditions are an integral part of “doing it,” but only the big ones, the rare big ones, really move things forward in life. The good ones can just do it, do it with ease, and go home satisfied with what they did.
However, great people take it to the next level, another level, and advancement unlike the other levels of effort. He thinks deeply about this fact. I mean, greatness is desired, but for so many, the effort seems like too much. Although it actually takes more effort to be a bad player in life, there is something short-circuiting and falling short there and it can’t even be fixed. After all, good work is done when the ability and desire are really there to do it. Great work is done when you deeply need and desire (in that order) to overcome the bad or the good. We all have a choice, we all have a desire, and we all have a reality to live in and whatever the reality is poor, good or great, all conditions are part of everything.
So here is my solemn advice to become good or great or good then great. Five words: Be aware. Control yourself genuinely.
Last night I was reading a self help book by Uell Stanley Andersen called “Success-Cybernetics”. As of this writing, I am back on the third chapter of that fifteen-chapter book. The entire book is about self-direction, self-control, and understanding the big basic why behind self-direction and self-control with some fun anecdotes in between. Sure, in some ways this book is more direct than the other things I’ve read from him like “Three Magic Words”, “The Secret of the Pyramids” and all that and a little bit forceful for when it was written at times, but the message It is clear: be aware. Control yourself genuinely. He and I use those five words in the same way and that’s what the good and the great have in common, it’s those five words.
