Does the average person want greatness?

Question

After closing down a business that wasn't going anywhere, I took a job at large company while I figure out my next venture. There are so many people (blue and white collar) here that have been here for over 30 years that I started thinking that maybe the average person isn't looking to excel to higher levels and is just content with working for retirement. I also don't mean just financial greatness, it could be greatness in art, service or anything that sets a person apart from the rest.

Answer 1

Some people are satisfied, some aren't. I don't know whether I was born with it or raised in it, but I've always strived to do better, yet they're many people I know who don't try to excel. I think the majority people don't because they believe they're life is as good as it gets for them. I encounter kids with this frame of mind constantly cause they can't see a better tomorrow.

Answer 2

I guess it's kind of hard to speak for the "average person" because few of us think that applies to us. The additional problem is the definition of "greatness." In whose opinion? What are the standards for measuring greatness?
I'm the greatest thing in the world in the eyes of my 2 dogs, aka "the freedloaders", because I feed them and walk them an hour every day. Most of my family probably consider me to have achieved greatness because my level of education is higher than anyone else's in the extended family. My fellow workers consider me great at times because I make final decisions on issues and take responsibility for those decisions. If not greatness, I have a high degree of respect from others in my profession because my job is high-profile and I've been doing it, and teaching it for decades.

Yet, despite, benchmarks of success, I question my abilities everyday. Is this the day they're going to find out I'm really not that competent? Is my stategy really better than my opposition's? Did I make the right choice on a stategic decision that has no right or wrong answer?

How do I measure greatness? Is it fame? My job gets my name mentioned in the newspaper occasionally. You can google me and get a lot of hits. So, why don't I feel "great" inside? Why am I always doubting my abilites? Also, what is a "higher level" for me to strive for? I'm already a Director of a government department. Others in the government take what I tell them is the best course of action even though they're technically of superior status.

The greatest heros of my generation (I'm nearly 60) didn't seek fame. They sought to achieve a goal and fame resulted from their efforts. Greatest can stem only from addressing a great need or a great cause. Did Gandhi seek to free India from the British to achieve greatness? No, greatness resulted from years of hard, thankless work. Did Rosa Parks think she would achieve greatness because she wouldn't move to the back of the bus? No, she was tired and she was fed up with segregation and she decided that day she would draw the line in the sand.
So, I do think the average person wants a type of greatness that many of us never see or recognize. Does not greatness lie in during the best job possible of cleaning the office building after the white collars have gone home? Is there no greatness in hitting the streets at 2 am with the road grader after a heavy snow storm? Isn't the police officer who arrests a DUI before an accident occurs achieving greatness?
I'm sorry this is so long. It's a superb question. I think the average person strives for greatness in his/her life, but greatness cannot be confused with fame or noterity.

Answer 3

What a great question! Yes, I think the average person does want to be great. But we fail to put a firm definition on what being great is. So, we fail to focus our lives on one or two things. Instead we let our lives get so cluttered with hobbies, tasks, etc, that we become great at nothing. If you really want to be great start by making a list of your top 5 passions (the areas you really care about in your life.) Now focus your whole life on these. If your doing something in your life that distracts you from these than eliminate it from your life. And make sure that these passions are specific. For example, when I started doing this, I put God as my first passion. But I found very quickly that too many things can fall into such a large title. So, now that passion is my personal relationship with God. Good luck becoming great.

Answer 4

Greatness is a subjective term, but personally I'd rather be happy then great. Also look at the "great" artists, many commit suicide, you really want that?

And lets look at economic greatness, do you want the thought in the back of your mind that the only reason your spouse is with you is because of money? Or that people are your friends only because of your wealth?

Give me an easily maintained adequate lifestyle and many true friends over greatness any day.

--But to answer your question about your workplace, those people have chosen survival over greatness. The higher you rise, the greater your fall.

Answer 5

I believe, everyone 'wants greatness'. It is our inner desire to prove that we exist at all that makes us excel in this or that way (you may explore the concept of 'Nemo' in J. Fowles's 'The Aristos').
Even if to you as an onlooker the 'average person' seems to be living a quite ordinary life, the same 'average person' may take a special pride in the way they are raising their children, or in their exceptional cooking skills, or in something else, - and this 'sets them apart from the rest', doesn't it?
And anyway, we all should sometimes remember this quote from the Bible: 'Do not judge, or you too will be judged'...

Parkdad, I wish you harmony with yourself and with the others :))

Answer 6

Nope. An average person is contented with what he has achieve. A great person wants greatness and wpend his life searching and working for greatness. Whether the result is failure or success, keep on doing it. Behind every success there are failures. I am on a journey to greatness too.

Answer 7

I think that everyone wants greatness, but many factors affect the average person not becoming great. Some of these are: the lack of will to strive and attain greatness, and being satisfied with the "greatness" they currently have.

Answer 8

The average person would settle for knowing he has a roof
overhead, a weeks food in the cupboard, a means to maintain it all, that is sort of secure, and at least one other
person in the world to say I LOVE YOU once in a while.
Oh and a beer mug that never runs out!

Answer 9

Much has to do with your definition of greatness. I believe that we all have a job to do in this life and if I accomplish that job, I have achieved greatness, however what is greatness to me probably wouldn't seem so to someone like you who sees greatness as great achievement in business.

Answer 10

as maslow has articulated it, "we have a universal tendency to strive upward"
people have their natural tendency to strive ON WHAT THEY PERCEIVE AS as upward. people dream. and, consciously or unconsciously, we want to make it happen.
regarding your question, yes, average persons want greatness. not all successful people have the highest IQ, or superb creativity, or ultimate charisma. in our world population, 60-70% of the people are average, and do you ever think that not one in this 70% strive for excellence that would set them apart?
humans, regardless of their classification (superior, genius, average, etc) has a natural tendency to go upward. no one wants to go downward. hope you got the point. ^_^