Aspire to be good, not great

Recently I was reading an article on BBC titled - Who will be remembered in 1000 years? It deals with the age-old idea of making history. The article goes into details of why who and how someone is remembered and using historical precedences the author lists very specific ways anyone can make history. It was an entertaining read, two bullet points that were especially amusing:

• Don't be royal 
• Be a villain 

Funny how history is so counteractive to our beliefs. To be remembered for the right reasons though, you need to accomplish something great, something worth remembering. That act of greatness will make sure you make history. Not a lot of us actively think about making history but we do something close to it, we do aspire to be great at things we do. 

From the moment we start learning a new skill, start a new job, pursue a new field of study or start a new relationship, we want to be great at it. 

But is it really worth trying to be great at something?

I don't think its worth it, more so I believe it exceedingly counterproductive to do so. Let me try to make my case below.

I have read my fair share of biographies of individuals known to be great at what they did, and one common theme in all of them was that none of those people were ever actually striving to be great. 

Lee Iaccoca: A legendary CEO who graduated from Princeton as an engineer, decided to become a car salesman and worked his way up to become the CEO of Ford Motor Company. He was eventually fired from Ford and ended up turning around Chrysler from the brink of bankruptcy. Over his long an adventurous career he focused on being good at solving the problems in hand.

Genghis Khan: One of the most feared fighters in history had a traumatic childhood, and for most of his adult life he was just trying to stay alive. In 1200 AD Mongolia one had to be an extremely good fighter and a shrewd tactician to stay alive, so that's what he became.

Vincent Van Gogh: One of the greatest painters to live, died a failure. His was never able to get his mom's approval on his choice of profession or his work. All that time he was just striving to be good at the one skill he had. 

Michael Phelps: The most decorated Olympian of all time, is famous for his rigid focus. I read in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers that he practices all his strokes in his head every day, weeks before every upcoming competition. He knows the exact number of strokes he will need to finish the race in the time required to comfortably win the competition. He won his 23 Olympic Golds one at a time.

All the individuals above worked very hard for a long time to achieve success, but all that time they just tried to focus on the small achievable goals. I strongly believe if anyone of them was trying to be great, they would not be able to recover from the failures they faced during their lifetime.

The idea of actively trying to be great at stuff is evident with people aiming for perfection in everything they do, trying to prove themselves correct by hook or by crook and being afraid of failure cause they might taint their reputation. Social media has only accentuated this behavior, we have all become nothing but crowd pleasers. Focused only on portraying a life that others can envy and remember rather than living one that we would cherish and remember.

On the other hand, aiming to be good at something has amazing advantages: 

1. Good is tangible: If you can play Bach's cello suite well, you are good at playing the cello. If you can write scalable/clean/fast code you are good at coding. If you can finish even 10 stages of Tour de France, you are a good cyclist. It is so much easier to achieve small tangible goals than to aim for a random pie in the sky.

2. It takes away the noise: If you are aiming to be good at something, you just need to focus and work hard at it. Give it all the time and practice it needs and you will get good at it, that’s all it takes. 

3. It makes you happier: Believe it or not, people with tangible and achievable goals in life are way more content and happier. Cherishing small successes will give you the boost to work harder towards bigger goals.

4. It won't matter what others think: Becoming good at something requires constant introspection, it requires analysis of our failures, it requires endless botched attempts and mind-numbing hours of practice. One thing it does not require is acceptance of your success by others around you. It will not matter if someone liked a photo of you playing the cello, what will matter is that you were able to play it. 

5. Good is iterative: The most amazing thing about perusing the idea of being good at something is that you can break it down into phases. You can start by trying to be good at the basics and then go and work hard at being good at advanced concepts and then the ninja level concepts - the list keeps going. Before you know, striving to be better becomes a habit. 

I personally don't think it really matters in the end if you become great or not, its the pursuit of being good which will make you a better person.