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What's really important
posted at 7:20 AM  
I found this on Snopes today. It's one of those things you might get in an email forward from your mom. But it's one of the good ones.
You don't actually have to take the quiz. Just read this straight through and you'll get the point. It is trying to make an awesome point!
Here's the first quiz:
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.
How did you do?
The facts are, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.
Easier?
The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.
Comments
To play devil's advocate here: the people from the first list, in general, probably don't care that their awards are "tarnished" and "forgotten." They seek fulfillment from being the best at what they have chosen to do in their lives and being recognized as such by their peers. My books will never be bestsellers because they're written in the style and theory of the professional historian, which is difficult for the general public to penetrate. Most will not put the effort in to comprehend. But having my mentor, who is himself one of the great historians of medicine of his time, look me in the eyes and say, "I learned from this," or "I could have never thought this idea or written this sentence," is the greatest feeling in the world. So, in the end, I agree with the second statement of the 'quiz', but the first statement likely isn't true. Outward motivation can drive no-one to the top because it is fleeting. Inner motivation is the engine of success.
What is the "first statement"? I'm having trouble figuring out why you responded the way you did, although I think you ended up coming to the same conclusion I came to.
The lesson I came away with was that the average person isn't going to care about my worldly achievements, but my nephews will remember how I used to run in the sprinkler and play soccer with them.
I'm really competitive, and for some reason I tend to think I should be achieving, achieving, achieving. Except--that inner motivation you talk about? I don't seem to have any. All I've got is the bad kind of motivation, where I want to prove myself to others and be famous. And that's not going to make me happy.
In other words, this lesson was another much-needed reality check for my ego.
Well, I would argue that the first list (inclusive of its transition into the second list) implicitly sets a tone (even thought it pays lip service by stating that these people 'are the top of their field,' yada, yada, yada) that conveys the following, "The people we envy in life will rot in the grave with their achievements just life us; take solace, envious people of the world." That's the underlying message I read in the first bit. The truth is, the fact that we can't name all those people from the first list says more about the nature of memory and our own interests than it does about those people's achievements. I know that Johannes Stark won the 1919 Nobel Prize for Physics because I read it last night, but I have no idea who won 1918 or 1920. That doesn't diminish those other two achievements. Ultimately, there is more than a bit of wisdom in the second list, but it is itself a tarnished message because of a bitter and false association drawn from the first. Another point I'd make is that every person has special people in their life, so the worth of those people from the second list is not their own specialness, it is you. It is the fact that you, of all 6 billion plus people on the planet, find them special. Thus, when you die and are in the grave, their specialness fades by a degree, too. I find the moral of this entire post to be: 1) leart to take pride in yourself; 2) learn to take pride in the accomplishments of others.
I guess since I've always been one of the "envious people of the world", I wasn't thinking in terms of what this quiz says about successful people. (That's not sarcasm or anything, just honesty. I envy all kinds of people.)
Thanks for clarifying. My perceptions have been broadened!
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