How To Be The Best Ever

(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions.)

Whoa there!  Slow down a minute.  Have you really considered what you’re doing?

You know who you are.  You’re the one believing that you really do excel at one particular skill.  You’re so confident that you could be the best ever at it, that you are on the verge of totally restructuring your life in order to prove it to the world.

If there’s not one confusing thing about life, there’s another.  Take definitions for a moment.  They can be descriptive or prescriptive.  If you’re like me and strive to always exist in the present, you likely find yourself drawn to descriptive definitions.  If you’re not like me and you prefer to live in a fantasy world, you’re likely drawn to prescriptive definitions.  For example, dictionary.com defines “peace” as “the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world.”  That is a prescriptive definition.  Howard Bloom, crazy thinker that he is, suggests a more descriptive definition.  Starting as a Tabula Rasa, he writes “peace” usually means, “‘Since I’m on top, let’s keep the status quo;’ or ‘Now that I’ve managed to climb on your back, would you please be kind enough to sit still'” (Bloom 265).*

Reading over dictionary.com’s definition is quite comical if it is supposed to be descriptive.  The ‘normal’ condition of the world.  Right.

Back to you, though.  Here you are.  The best ever.   But no one knows it.  We don’t need sources to know what being the best is.  It is simply being better at something than everyone else.  With 20/20 hindsight, let’s see what we can learn by looking at how a couple of people who are arguably the best ever did it.

I’m thinking specifically of Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong.  If you haven’t watched MJ’s Hall of Fame speech, what you need to know is that it disappointed most people.  Not me.  I took notes.  Here was someone who was the best ever.  How did he do it?  I wanted to know.

Next we have Lance Armstrong.  Even more than MJ, Lance Armstrong solidified his place in history as the best ever.

But we’re talking about you.  So without further ado, here are the instructions.

Instructions for How To Be The Best Ever:

Step 1 –  Forsake everything, literally every other thing in your life if it doesn’t help you become the best ever.

Step 2 –  Believe, really believe that when you finally get the recognition you so desire, it will have been worth it.

*Bloom, Howard K. The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1995. Print.
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2 comments

  1. Janet

    So who are you working so hard to prove it to; the better people or the people more best than you ( and then you are not the best).

    Like

  2. Fellow Mugwump

    Well said, brother Mugwump,

    So the crux may not be how to be the best, but rather at what shall I strive to be the best. Wisdom is often in the choosing, or sometimes not choosing. I think I’ll strive to do one thing well…at a time; and I’ll try to choose well. Perhaps then, when I’m before the only One who matters, my life may be judged to have not been entirely in vain.

    Keep the Faith,

    A fellow mugwump

    Like

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