Greatness

“Be not afraid of greatness.
Some are born great.
Some achieve greatness.
And others have greatness thrust upon them.” Shakespeare

More than anything we like the sense of achievement. But how often do we see it in ourselves and not realize it?

“Some are born great.”

These are the people you know will do great things since the day they were born…said every mother who has ever given birth. But how often is this true, I think the best person to describe this is none other than Jesus. The reason I said that is that he was born on the run, his parents had to hide because the king was out to kill all children under two in fear of him. He was born in the small town of Bethlehem. Not only did the shepherds, who were nearby came, to pay their respects, but three wise men from the eastern country came. The wise men said they were following a star that symbolized the birth of a new king, and when they found him they knelt as they presented gifts to him.

Jesus grew not only to have a legion of followers, he was the start of a religion we come to know as Christianity.

“Some achieve greatness.”

Ok, you know Woodrow Wilson right? He is only the 28th president of the United States, no big deal right. But did you know he had a learning disability called dyslexia? To keep you from having to look it up it is, “A general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence.” He did not let this stop him as he became a professor at Princeton University, an author of a popularly acclaimed book on George Washington, the governor of New Jersey, and the 28th President of the United States.

One of his famous quotes was, “The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them.”

“And others have greatness thrust upon them.”

Samuel Adams, one of America’s founding fathers. A upper-class man going through school, his family was religious but he wanted to follow the path of politics. The influence of his religious uprising was felt in every decision that he took as a politician, he was known as a religious man and was later called “the last of the Puritans”. Because of his upbringing, he learned about state affairs, which drove him to resent the British rule. After his family was almost brought to ruin, he had to fight to keep what his family had left, deepening his resentment to the British. From here, he made aggressive attacks on british policies.

Little did he know the more he resisted the taller her stood above the rest. After a series of follow-up events, and a month after the battle of lexington and Concord, he participated in the continetal congress meeting. On the second meeting, the Congress members wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence, and Samuel Adams personally drafted the Articles of Confederation, securing him as one of the nation’s founding fathers.

 

So don’t be in a hurry to do something great, you may already be doing it.