Ordinary Greatness

The surprising truth about your success in life

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Primed to expect pain

Lucky for me, my first ever COVID test wasn’t necessary until at least 15 months after the first major outbreaks. By then, I was primed by everyone who had the test to expect an unpleasant and very painful experience. But mine was the opposite. Made so by the caring, compassionate, and warm manner of the woman who administered my test. In a highly pressured environment, with plenty of angst around her, she had the presence and the care-factor to treat an absolute stranger with grace. She could have been simply clinically competent (and that would have been enough), but she chose to overlay that with an attitude that touched me very deeply.

Death and a beautiful life

And then there was my uncle Doug who immigrated with his young family from South Africa to Australia about 20 years ago. Sitting at his funeral a few years ago, and listening to his family speak about his life, I was struck by what a beautiful, deep, connected life he had lived in their eyes. I suspect he was no angel based on some of the stories that went around. But in the end, those closest to him affectionately recalled his love, conversation, and particular quirks.

He couldn’t walk past a “good sale” and stockpiled goods “just in case we need them”.

What I remember is his very cheeky sense of humour and how we wouldn’t censor himself around us teenagers — he engaged with us as if we were real people that even mattered a little!

What struck me in that moment at his funeral was that his life was beautifully lived. Not perfect, but beautiful — and that qualifies for a certain greatness. Yet, for all outward appearances, he was ordinary.

He lived a simple life, earned a modest living in a managerial role, raised a family, had grandchildren, grew old and died.

No fame, no fortune, no influencing (not even micro-influencing!).

Embodying ordinary greatness

So, why did it make such an impression? Because these two people embodied the meaning of ‘ordinary greatness’ by bringing an incredible attitude and behaviour to run-of-the-mill ordinary life situations. To get a little esoteric even, they lifted the energetic vibration, in moments, for all of us. Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, writes of this in terms of ‘Frequency Holders’.

‘Ordinary’ is an adjective used to describe something or someone “with no special or distinctive features; normal”. ‘Greatness’ usually means “the quality of being great; eminence or distinction”.

So, what do I mean by this apparently contradictory expression ‘ordinary greatness’? It’s the exceptional displayed in people that most would describe as having no prominence or extraordinary merit.

Compelled to become our very best selves

We are blinded to this in our everyday lives because we have been entrained to define greatness by external standards. Today — it means celebrity, wealth, job titles, the trappings of status (expensive car, branded fashion, etc.), being an influencer, being known, writing a book. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with all these things. We are compelled to become our very best selves.

As a recovering perfectionist, I’m closely acquainted with the frustration and soul-destroying nature of unachievable standards that this compulsion drives. And also, with the flip side — that delicious sense of accomplishment at achieving them.

The problem is that the high standards and sense of accomplishment are often defined in contrast to someone or something else at a barely conscious level.

Our measure of greatness is built on a comparative scale rather than a genuine, intrinsic dimension. Our world has imposed such biased standards to determine ‘greatness’, that so many distinctive and beautiful aspects of our humanity simply don’t make the cut. The result is that we all feel lacking in some way if we’re not meeting the (external) world’s definition for greatness.

Our own special space in the world

There’s a part of all of us that wants to feel expressed in our own special space in the world, but how do we ever come to feel that when the standards are false?

We start with embracing ‘ordinary greatness’ and we collectively redefine what we call great. It doesn’t need a mass of people (fans, followers, likes) to confirm it. It simply requires that we see more clearly the contribution of the ordinary people around us who are bringing their best selves and contributing a deeper level of greatness. That includes us.