Drive

The drive to be best is…well, very American. And this drive is often the engine carries us through those hard times that we all will experience. The persistence, the ability to push through pain in circumstances that call for such measures, is that independence and aptitude that so many refer to when waning poetically about how people “used to be”.

But this drive is also that thing pushes people to be overly competitive, rude, selfish and arrogant. The need to better than everyone is oddly enough the same thing as the need to do one’s very best. They are the same, but one overtaken by ego while the other is the result of personal ideals. The need to beat is not the same as the need to do better.

Ah, and only if we could learn this early on. It would save most of us from much brow-beating and self flagellation. When we are young we are often not capable of differentiating the need to beat from the need to do better. We will learn, but it sometimes takes a lifetime.

So, do not lose the need to be better, but remember that thought. It does not mean the need to be better than someone else. It can just mean the need to be better. Virtue is the shining difference. There is no virtue in honor or pride. There is only virtue in knowing that you have done the very best that you could.

Remember this the next time you look back on your life and pull the birch out. Put the switch down. It’s time to remember that we are all only human.