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Why Striving for Greatness is a Waste

4 Reasons.

1. Replaceability

There is nothing I can do that no one else cannot.

There are no thoughts I can think that no one else won't.

There is nothing I have to offer that is unique.

As such to attempt to do more than merely survive is to throw yourself to the wolves. All the elation of success is temporary and as you successively succeed you will find less and less elation from each success until success itself pans out to normalcy. A proof? Who still celebrates their graduation day ten years after being in the field? Certainly you've decided that such an achievement, if even referred to as that anymore, is old hat.

Why then work harder to do what others likely will do faster, more efficiently, and at lower cost?

2. Revocability

Nothing is guaranteed.

The greatest ideas known to man, the ultimate wisdom he "seeks" and the resources he so "desires" all at his fingertips and he does nothing with it. Let him. So then the pauper who worked tirelessly on his business but it failed versus the millionaire who worked tirelessly on his and it succeeded are both the same man with different luck? Even if it were the same product, which has occurred many a time, why did one model succeed and the other not?

Let us not chalk it up to brilliance falsely. Mere luck. Certainly we can scrutinize but the truth of the matter is that all that a man does can be easily revoked; you can be just as intelligent, productive, efficient and in some cases even moreso than your competition and he be chosen for arbitrary and completely asinine reasons. He looks better. He smiles more. He seems "the image". Oh woe to the man who works his fingers to the bone only to be rejected not based on the merit of his efforts but simple whim.

Why then work for a supposed promise that is never actually signed in blood?

3. Rationality

Needs are easily met.

I am from a first-world country. What can I complain about? "I've not traveled the globe!" I say, with my head down as if this is a rational concern. I eat, so much so I've grown portly, I sleep on a mattress of my choosing in clean linens, I drive senselessly small distances to achieve goods I don't want that aren't even healthy and I own a pass to a gym I rarely visit that I don't need because I can do most of the things I do there at home. I sit on this machine, with another machine running in the other room, my electric bill as to a mere nickel of my own income which honestly I've achieved working significantly less hard than my other previous lower paying jobs.

But here I am sad that I've not "traveled the world" like my imaginary Facebook buddies who keep posting pictures of their perfect lives. So I grow greedy and horde coin?

Why even lose a wink of sleep over something that I don't need, will not want and ultimately will not change me?

4. Rest

Surrendering to the human desire to do nothing is no sin.

There are so many who toil so hard under the sun trying to build a name for themselves when in fact no one will remember them even among their own children. The names of the world are few despite there being so many and yet they all strive, perhaps like misguided ants, to impress the queen and win the honor of everlasting life through death.

Why should I rise from this bed when all that awaits me is a coffin?

Why Striving for Greatness is a Waste
Why Striving for Greatness is a Waste
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