To Be Famously Great

Do you want to be great or do you want to be famous?

In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy asks, “How can Beethoven be great if he never had his picture on a bubble gum card?!?”

It’s a fair question to ask, especially considering the methodology in which our world operates when it comes to greatness. 
 
I would propose that our world has redefined greatness and added to it a qualifier of being famous.  There’s this misnomer that your greatness isn’t qualified until you’ve made a splash of fame.  Let’s face it; we judge how ‘good’ someone is based on their number of followers on social media, how many records they have sold… and all the while, there’s a guy who lives across town who can write circles around the chart-topping writer, who can play the touring guitar player under a table.  Don’t believe me?  Go spend one night in Nashville, listening to open mic night.  There are massive numbers of those who have the chops and are awaiting their chance.

Most everyone chases the fame.  And they chase the famous.  And they aspire to BE the famous. 

But how many of us know that many of the famous are not the great ones.  Sure, every once in a while someone comes along who possesses all of the greatness, but also has made a famous splash.  James Taylor, John Mayer, Garth Brooks….

And then for every famous one, there are a hundred greats whose names will never trend on social media.  So my question is simply this:  Which do you aspire to be? The great or the famous?  Here is the reality – if you aspire to be great, then you cannot measure your success against being famous.

Fame is fleeting.  

Every famous person I have ever met all have one thing in common: they have yet to find their sense of arrival.  There is still a longing for something beyond their current reality.

So let it be said of us that we are the generation that flips the script from chasing fame to embracing our unique God-given path; that we each chase greatness, giving our best and leaving nothing behind.