All that Glitters ...

Monday, August 16, 2021

Saturday, the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in a week-one pre-season match-up. The 49ers' nickname is derived from the Great American Gold Rush of 1849 which brought thousands of souls to northern California from around the globe in search of instant wealth. Those who dropped everything from their prior lives to seek treasure in the hills in and around San Francisco were said to have caught “Gold Fever.” Not only did the fever compel otherwise rational human beings to leave everything behind in the hunt for Gold, it also led many to become easily convinced that any shiny mineral like Mica or Pirite was, in fact, Gold. So desperate to find Gold were these prospectors that they were easily fooled into believing anything that looked like Gold must be the real thing. Soon, these shiny minerals became known as “Fools Gold” and, hand in hand, as a warning to the overzealous prospector, a cliché was born: “All that glitters is not Gold.”

And that’s the point for the week.

It’s easy to mistake one thing for something else. That’s especially true when we want so desperately for it to be so. When we want so badly to find something, when finding it consumes our every waking thought, when our own personal happiness depends on finding it, we begin to imagine seeing it everywhere. Even when it’s a mirage, we will convince ourselves it is real, because we have staked quite literally everything upon its finding.

So, in such a state of desperation, finding something close enough becomes just as good. A shiny rock is as good as Gold. Because at some point, it becomes as much about the appearance of finding something as having actually found it. See, to admit to having not found something would be to admit to being wrong. To do so would be to admit to being a fool. And those who are more concerned with being right than being correct never do either.

And so, with each nugget of Pirite, they scream, “Gold!” ever louder, because for them, it’s about the ruse. For them, it’s about their own ego. For them, it’s about being right, not being correct. It’s about the glitter, not the Gold.

But the trouble with worrying more about being right than being correct is that those who pay attention know the truth. They can tell the difference between a rock and a piece of Gold. And they have little use for people who try to convince others of things that are not so. People are funny like that. They prefer integrity to the alternative, and they don’t follow people who refuse to be honest with them. They care little for how badly one might wish for something false to be true, or why they wish it to be so, even if it’s for some good cause. That’s because doing bad in the name of good doesn’t make it any better.

True, caring leaders, and serious people in general, do not attempt to convince others that things are one thing when they know they are another. They do not seek to profit from that which is not genuine. Because they refuse to use falsehoods to draw a crowd – they actually attract more followers – among whom they engender great trust, loyalty and respect. And they achieve more for no more complicated a reason than they waste less time trying to convince people of things that plainly aren’t so. As a result, these leaders win more often. They do so because they maintain focus on that which is true, authentic, and which makes the lives of those around them better.

So, don’t be a fool. Seek only the truth.?

Ignore the glitter. Find the Gold.

And win.

P.S. Last week in Colorado, a man calling out to a baseball team’s mascot – a purple polka-dotted dinosaur - was accused by the team, major media outlets, and even the player’s union of repeatedly screaming a racial epithet. The mascot’s name is Dinger. All that glitters…

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