Commemorate: (v) to recall and show respect for someone or something
Mediocre is always so busy dragging down excellence that it doesn’t have the time to lift up inferior.
Because of this, mediocre keeps sinking deeper and deeper into the sag of inferiority, desperately trying to change the rules of operation and the requirements for the rewards provided.
We have a system of entertainment and information that streams in our country, which feels the need to commemorate events by finding the heroes, the standouts and those who fared well, interview them, extol them and then, within short weeks, dig up dirt on them to prove there was really nothing exceptional about them in the first place.
Why? Because without this kind of reporting, Ma and Pa Kettle, sitting at home, start getting depressed–thinking less of themselves because they don’t measure up.
After all, the problem of going to a nude beach is that you’re fully aware that everyone is stuck with an eyeful of you.
How do we commemorate the attributes, the virtues, the kindness and the intelligence that sets the human race on fire with an explosion of knowledge and unveiling of great cures and advances?
Well, we certainly can’t do it if we spend all of our time mocking initiative and making it seem that those who portray a classy morality are really just stuck in the past.
These are the three great things we should commemorate if we expect to shine:
- Empathy
Any time someone feels for someone else, it is miraculous.
- Research
Stop settling for the status quo, and find a better way to accomplish things.
- Humility
The only way to achieve the first two is to be humble enough to know when you’ve made a mistake so you can change it quickly and improve your cause.
May we step out of our doldrums of self-satisfaction and begin to commemorate–and therefore imitate–those who are actually doing matters better than us?
Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast
Good News and Better News
Words from Dic(tionary) 