Everyday Greatness

  Ever since I was a little girl, I have felt that I was destined for greatness. At age three I was starring in garage shows, strutting along my father’s workbench with microphone in hand and charging my neighbors admission to see me perform. Over the years, I have found myself having to redefine greatness because society would have us believe that fame and fortune was the only route to achieving true greatness. Unfortunately, in our country, we have become obsessed with the rich and famous. We just can’t get enough of “True Hollywood Stories” & “Celebrities Uncensored” and the glut of reality TV demonstrates the lengths people will go to for their fifteen minutes of fame. As a result, nothing we do or have in our ordinary life seems to be enough. A couple of weeks ago I celebrated my 48th birthday, and I had a very special, yet simple day. I went to bed that night with a smile on my face and gratitude in my heart but also had a sneaking suspicion that a cold was brewing in my body. The next day the cold hit full force, so I stayed on the couch all day, covered in blankets, sipping tea and watching TV. It’s not every day that one has the luxury to lie about and watch TV and I was especially excited to watch Oprah. I was totally unprepared to have The Oprah Winfrey Show be the very thing that wrecked my birthday. Oprah had just turned the big 5-0 and her entire show was about her birthday extravaganza. Fifty of her closest girlfriends had a luncheon in her honor and 250,000 orchids had been shipped in just to decorate the tables. That evening, 250 more of her “best friends” were invited to a black-tie dinner gala. She had been opening her gifts for two hours a day for over a month and still hadn’t finished opening them. In the course of one hour the bouquet of flowers, delivered from my best friend just the day before, began to wilt before my very eyes, my joy turned into jealousy, and I found myself smack dab in the old comparison trap that I had worked so diligently to climb out of for most of my life. Maybe it was the fact that I was sick, but it took me two full days to climb back out and get back in touch with what “everyday greatness” really means. Our society may be brainwashed to believe that “Bigger, Better, Fast, More” is the route to greatness, but I need to reconnect and be reminded on a daily basis that the holy, important and spiritual is found in the everyday, ordinary moments of life.