Fulfill your obligation to be great: The flower shop story

[This story comes from How to Self-Destruct, p. 112-3]

I have a dear friend who immigrated to this country from India. His parents were in Kuwait during 1990 when Iraq invaded, and for six months he didn’t know if they were alive or dead. He himself was there during the invasion, and was taken by his brother and put on the last boat out—literally. He didn’t have time to pack, and left the country only with the money his brother happened to have in his pocket at the time. He got himself back to the U.S., where he was in college, and almost immediately had to drop out of college and get a job so he could eat and pay rent. This voided his visa. The ordeal was a life-altering experience.

Fast-forward fifteen years. He long ago reconnected with his parents and sorted out his citizenship status. He finished college and is now a successful business development executive. The two of us had breakfast together nearly every week for two years, counseling each other on our careers and sharing our thoughts on the world around us. One day, he leans over his bowl of oatmeal, points across the street, and says, “I could open a little flower shop on that corner, and I’d be a huge success story. No one would bat an eye—they’d hear a story about how I had nothing when I came here and they’d be proud of me. But if you”—meaning me—“open that same flower shop, you’re a failure. You have too much of a head start to be happy with that kind of achievement.”

It took two full days before I could process what he said. When I did, it was a total shock to the system. I was listening to the song “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” by Naughty by Nature when it hit. I was jogging, listening to the lyrics, and suddenly I thought, “Here is a group of guys with nothing—nothing—except the ability to rap, and they’re using that one skill to claw everything they can from this world. And here I’ve got a monster head start, and what am I doing? Sleepwalking through life, squandering my advantage?” That’s when I understood my friend’s metaphor about the flower shop.

With all due respect to my local florist, the “flower shop” metaphor for me has come to symbolize achieving less than the most possible. It’s the “safe” option in that it may take “spectacular failure” off the table, but it is also the suboptimal option in that it takes spectacular success off the table, too.

I have an obligation to be as great as I can be—to use everything I’ve got to make something good happen in this world.

And so do you.

But what about the risk?, you may wonder.

Risk of what, losing? You have to have played the game to have lost. You have to have tried. To have cared. To have committed yourself.

To have lived.

Where’s the risk in that?

If you had the courage to take the field, to bring everything you’ve got, then you are guaranteed either a great experience or a great story. And there’s no risk when those are your choices.

So, what are you up to? Are you giving it everything you’ve got? Are you embracing your Moments of Clarity? Staying open to having Quality Events? Or are you playing it “safe,” “flower shop”-ing your way through life?

Tagged as: How to Self-Destruct