Greatness

"We can't do great things. Only small things with great love."
Mother Teresa

We are all born and bred in the soil of aspirations. Even before we were born our parents, even grandparents had some aspirations for us, some more realistic than others. Very often parents aspire their children to be the person they could or never had the opportunity to be themselves. You get raised with those aspirations spoken into your life everyday.

As you become older you develop aspirations of your own. We all remember the fireman, policeman era. You want to rescue others, be a hero, be remembered.

Once we reach the end of school, suddenly these aspirations need refinement. They need to take the shape of a career path. Now you have to start with the actual work to make those aspirations become a reality. You get disillusioned, small successes make you hunger for more. You want to be good at what you do, but keep a balance between work and play.

Through all these phases of life things change. Your aspirations might change, your level of confidence grows or gets cut down, you start to see life through a different pair of glasses. Past experiences shape your future focus.

One things never changes though - we all want to be great. Great at what we do, who we are. We want to be remembered.

Then the truth hits you, through the words of a woman who will be remembered across generations of heroes. Mother Teresa herself says that we can't do great things, we can't change the world. We will always be replaceable. This sounds hopeless.

Luckily she gives the answer as well: we can do small things with great love. Love conquers all. We can change ourselves, our attitudes. In love we can pay it forward. We can care about the person, not the cause or the task.

Through doing small things we can make lasting differences by living in the here and now, and then without even realising it we will become truly great.