day no. 14,947: mediocre milquetoast or dangerous greatness?

While running on the treadmill last night (7/18/19) listening to Langhorne Slim and The Law's "Past Lives" I took note of the following verse

I wish that I were good
oh man, I wish that I were great
I wish that I'd been early
more often than late
but nothing lasts forever
maybe that's fate
when you're alive, you're alright
when you're dead, you're a saint

I can relate to that desire to be good and even more to that desire to be great. I have recently adopted the phrase, "in order to be great at something, you have to be willing to first be bad at it." When you want to be good, it makes sense that you would keep going and want to be better... even great. But that only complicates the necessity of first being bad at something. It makes the badness all the more difficult to endure. A desire for greatness can often create an unwillingness to bear up under badness. And so, many simply walk away and choose mediocre milquetoast rather than a dangerous greatness.

If you want to be on top of things: early, adequate, competent and capable, you are going to likely first have to be a little late, inadequate, incompetent and incapable. But if you keep at it and by grit and grace keep going, you may just find yourself getting earlier, more adequate, more competent and more capable than you were before and one step closer to greatness than you were before you ever failed.

Furthermore, if you somehow embrace the difficult venture of getting better at something, you still must consider that the end of the thing may only be greatness in hindsight. Your achievements will only outlast you if they are honorable and eternal. The saints do not only live on forever in our memories because of their noble lives, they live right now eternal as we only begin to catch on to how amazing God's grace was moving in their lives.