Brush with Greatness

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

 I want to be rich by myself, not by borrowing.

— Michel de Montaigne

      I received a voice-mail message from a friend who is a massage therapist at a luxury hotel. “Call me,” she requested excitedly. “I have to tell you about my brush with greatness.”

      When I returned her call and ask her what had happened, she told me, “I massaged Dustin Hoffman today.”

      Well, that was cool. Yet something about her phrase “my brush with greatness” did not sit well with me.

      “Dustin Hoffman is a great actor,” I told her. “But when you say ‘my brush with greatness,’ it sounds as if he is great and you are not, and you were lucky to touch greatness for a moment. In my opinion, you are just as great as he is. You are an outstanding massage therapist and an awesome person. Who knows, maybe after his massage he phoned a friend and reported, ‘I have to tell you about my brush with greatness . . .’”

      My friend thanked me for my affirmation of her worth. Yet the lesson goes far beyond that one encounter. We have all have been taught that greatness lives outside of us, and we need to rub up against it or import it so we can become great. That is exactly the opposite of how true greatness operates. Magnificence resides within all of us, and we need but tap into it and bring it forth. We do not need a brush with greatness; we need to simply brush from greatness.

      People who idolize greatness constantly seek it outside themselves and remain on a frustrating quest, like the goat that pulls a cart in order to get a taste of a carrot that is hung just beyond reach. Those who look within for greatness realize that greatness is in them as a gift of life. Then they share it with quiet confidence and transform the world from the inside out.

Do you idolize anyone as greater than you, or seek to become great by importing worth?

How would you proceed differently if you knew that greatness already lives inside you?

I accept the gifts I have been given, and I express greatness through my unique talents.