I have just discovered something disturbing about myself: I'm okay with mediocrity (it helps to start saying it out loud).
I've made "showing up" my own brand of success, silently congratulating myself for being such a selfless donator of my time. Well, at least I'm here, I say to myself. Those people didn't even come. The problem is, when showing up is all it takes to succeed, what do I do once I've arrived? I mean, once you've won the game, is there any reason to keep playing?
I think I'm coming close to pinpointing some of my motivation problem. I do not have great expectations. Instead, I set the bar so low that it's nearly impossible not to succeed. Without great expectations and nearly unreachable goals, it makes the epic life decidedly unepic.
The reason I'm discussing this is because so much of it relates to how I see my role in "The Church" (by "The Church" I simply mean whatever community of believers I happen to belong to at any given moment) and the post a couple months ago about living strategically. We were made to live epic lives, which is not possible when there is no conquest or war. Setting goals is great, but if the goals themselves are not great, achieving them means nothing.
This is a huge subject, and there's a lot more to it. But I wanted to introduce the idea and confess that until now, I have had a misunderstanding of what it means to achieve and succeed, and I'm afraid I have severely overestimated myself.
If anyone out there has any additional thoughts, I'd be glad to read them.
Jeff
