How the world works

And the class of '57 had its dreams
Oh, we all thought we'd change the world with our great words and deeds
Or maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs
The class of '57 had its dreams - The Statler Brothers

This song is on the Best of CD I bought "for mom's birthday" last weekend.  This first refrain really struck me.  I'm older now than than the class of '57 was when this song was written, and could easily find myself daunted by this sense of the ordinary, mundane nature of my life among the billions of mundane lives that are most of our stories.

But for one thing, I believe the group may be being too hard on themselves and their peers.  I don't think any of us really feels as if the world owes it to us to conform to our existence in some way.  More basically, though, I think that we grow up with a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world works, which some of us never get past.  We think that if we want a thing badly enough it will come to be somehow, rather than correctly understanding that we will make choices throughout our lives that will be rooted in the things we really think are important to us, and these will only partially determine the course of our lives.  So, if we're really single-minded enough about our goals, and if we don't get derailed by circumstances completely beyond our control, and if also we have sufficient talent for what we dream to accomplish, then we may do some great thing that we envision.  But that really takes a combination of talent, dedication, and circumstance.

For instance: Michael Phelps is 6' 4" tall, and compared to most people his size he has a longer arm span, larger hands and larger feet, plus a double-jointed chest area, all of which aid his stroke efficiency and efficacy.  His muscles produce significantly less lactic acid than most other athletes, allowing him to train more intensely for longer periods.  Even with all of these remarkable physical attributes, Michael still had to put in many laborious hours of intense training to accomplish his remarkable Olympic achievements. And suppose he'd experienced some catastrophic accident before the Beijing Olympics? Only so many of these things were ever within his control, but he had to exercise the control he did have to accomplish his great deeds. Now, these great things are over, but Michael's life continues, and is no less valuable today, next year or next decade because his glorious Olympic career has been completed.

Could it be that the class of '57, and the rest of us, put too much of our attention and effort on the wrong sort of outcome?  Part of what makes great things happen are the outliers of our characteristics. I'm reminded of a quote from The Incredibles: If everyone is special, then no one is.

I think the most important things we can each do, in terms of how life really is, can be illustrated more in line with this frequently misquoted thought:

We are not all called to do great things - not even me - but we are all called to do small things with great love. - Mother Teresa

When we seek greatness in anything other than loving greatly, we lose sight of the best things we should really be doing day in and day out because of the great things we may imagine.  Unfortunately, the greatest - that is, the strongest, most driving - love that many of us know is is for ourselves, for whatever hunger drives us to mostly act on our own behalf.  We indulge our own wants rather than really submitting our desires to the needs of others.  No, we all can't be Mother Teresa, but the words and deeds we're all called to daily are rarely "great" in terms of fame, fortune or worldwide impact.